When Tony met Charlie

I met Prince Charles the other day. Well I say say met; it's not as if I bumped into him in the shop. I accompanied about sixty kids to act as a welcoming committee when his royalness visited town. Actually since it was our job to stand outside the supermarket and wait, I suppose I did bump into him down the shops after all.

The problem is that I cannot pretend to be anything other than a dyed in the wool republican so meeting the next incumbent of a redundant crown posed more than a few moral dilemmas. I was also worried that the purple rinse Daily Mail brigade might find me out and stone me to death as a heretic. So why did I bother going at all? Well, the simple reason is; to impress the in laws. More specifically Gill's mam, who is a card carrying, flag waving royalist (you should see the collection of cups!). By going along to see the heir apparent discuss meat products at a local store I managed to fill my brownie points quota to the brim.

As it turned out it was not the ordeal I worried it might be. I got a free lunch , got out of work early and met a friend from Look North who was there to film the event. Prince Charles seemed nice enough. He spoke to the kids about exams; 'are you doing exams?', 'have you done exams?' 'are you studying for exams?' 'I'm glad I don't have to do exams'. It was interesting to note that rather than speak to the royal visitor most of the pupils just wanted to film him on their camera phones. They were all in the paper the next day with their Nokias in his face. I was going to tell them to stop but as a teacher colleague was also clicking away like David Bailey I thought better of it. In fact despite prior concerns I didn't make a show of myself at all. I didn't feel in the least compelled to rail against hereditary privilege nor shout abuse or quote Thomas Paine as the prince ambled by. In fact once Charlie turned up I found myself barged out of the way by scores of deceptively powerful OAPs (after a cure for scrofula no doubt). As a result I didn't even get my phisog on the goggle box despite having a friend on the inside.

What I did get however, was loads of my favourite food for tea when I got back to the farm that evening. Gill's mam had been slaving away in the kitchen all afternoon and was desperate to hear about the royal visit. Who says that compromising deep seated political beliefs doesn't pay.

Until next time.