Anderson's Book About King Charles

[antelopevalley]

There does not appear to be things in this book that are new. I have read the below before. What is different is that everything has been brought together in one book.

"King Charles was attached to his childhood teddy bear well into adulthood, according to a new book.

In the biography “The King: The Life of Charles III,” out Nov. 8, Christopher Andersen writes that the now-king’s former trusted valet, Michael Fawcett, was in charge of caring for the stuffed animal — when Charles was in his forties. Anytime the toy needed mending, the royal’s former nanny Mabel Anderson was brought out of retirement to make the necessary repairs.

According to a former valet, the retired nanny “was the only human being allowed to take needle and thread to Prince Charles’ teddy bear. He was well into his forties, and every time that teddy needed to be repaired, you would think it was his own child having major surgery,” Andersen writes.

Valet Fawcett was also in charge of squeezing toothpaste onto the then-Prince of Wales’ monogrammed toothbrush, shaving his face, helping him put on trousers and lacing up his shoes. He laid out the royal’s pajamas and turned down his bed nightly.

The gardening staff at Charles’ Highgrove estate were expected to live up to his exacting standards as well.
The head gardener, Andersen writes, woke up every day to a list of “instructions and complaints written by his boss in red ink.”

The then-prince would stand on his porch and, if not happy with the job being done by landscapers, allegedly bark orders at them through a green megaphone.
“For someone who said he was bullied as a child, Prince Charles clearly enjoyed bullying us,” a Highgrove staffer told Andersen. “He could be pleasant and courteous, but just as much of the time, he was moody and mean. He didn’t think twice about shouting insults at you if you put a foot wrong.”
Another former valet, Ken Stronach — who was, for many years, in charge of hand-washing the prince’s underwear and tucking him into bed with his beloved teddy — concurred.

Stronach claims in the book to have seen Charles, in the midst of an argument with his then-wife, Princess Diana, grab a heavy wooden bootjack and throw it at her, narrowly missing her head.

Another time, Charles, who was staying at a posh friend’s villa in the South of France, allegedly grew enraged when he accidentally lost one of his cufflinks down a bathroom sink.

“Flying into a blind rage, he pulled the sink off the wall, then smashed it, looking for the cufflink,” Andersen writes. “Unable to find the missing jewelry, a wild-eyed Prince of Wales spun around and grabbed his valet by the throat. Stronach broke free, darted out a side door — and into a linen closet. Terrified, he huddled there for thirty minutes before he could hear Charles leave the bathroom.”

Charles’ temper tantrums allegedly extended to his tight social circle.
“Once, while a guest at a friend’s country home, Charles wanted some fresh air,” Andersen writes. “Unable to open the window, he picked up a chair and smashed it open. Not satisfied with the results, he smashed another.”

As Stronach notes, “You have to understand. The prince is accustomed to getting what he wants. And he wanted some fresh air.”

pagesix.com/2022/11/02/king-charles-had-a-valet-for-his-teddy-bear-in-his-40s-book/

Yes that's really shocking - I wish he weren't king. I was surprised that these allegations are not more widely talked about. A 2014 book (Pets by royal appointment) by royalist Brian Hoey, who has glossed oer things, mentioned that he is feared by servants for his sharp tongue. (The book also has disturbing info on Princess Anne and the Queen's treatment of issues with their dogs and servants)

@beatrice14 I will look at that book. I had assumed it would be a fluff piece, but obviously not.
Charles does not seem a nice man.

There is quite a lot of fluff, but there are also some interesting insights into how much the royal indulge their dogs, to the detriment of their servants, as well as their guests, family and the dogs themselves (Anne’s dog Dotty killed one of the Queen’s corgis).

To elaborate on the Charles issue -
the exact quote is ‘Prince Charles is regarded as the most demanding of royal employers. His temper tantrums are legendary and he is even
feared on occasion by his siblings and cousins, who have all, at some point or other, felt his anger and the sharp edge of his tongue. ‘
Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII were notorious for the way they overindulged their pugs, but the other royals really don’t seem much better in that respect.

The servants are expected to serve them outside when it’s raining while they watch the shooting at Sandringham. The Queen expected her staff to stoically endure the corgis worrying at their trouser legs, nipping and sometimes biting them. Anyone who tried to stroke them was likely to get bitten – the queen thought that keeping them with people, rather than in kennels, was ‘character-building’ for them. She would not tolerate the suggestion that they snapped and caused pain. At feeding time, if a dog tried to jump the queue the footman was expected to put them back, and were sometimes bitten while doing so, but could not reprimand the dogs on pain of dismissal. One footman was knocked unconscious when the leads got tangled as the dogs rushed downstairs – he was blamed.
I read in another book (I think it was Queen Elizabeth II’s Guide to life?) that when a footman was pulled downstairs in the same way (not sure if this was the same situation) and painfully twisted his ankle, the queen was more worried about her dogs. The dogs were supposedly very obedient to the Queen (not sure if to anybody else?) so she did not bother to fully housetrain them and the staff had to keep blotting paper and soda water nearby in case of accidents.
Apparently, the Queen Mother was just the same with her dogs, and they royals in general seem to be equally unsympathetic to guests or even family who have a bad experience with the dogs.

Princess Anne’s dogs only obey her and the incidents with the queen’s are relatively minor compared to the incidents with Anne’s.
During a dinner party, the servants were expected the clear up a large turd left by her dog Dotty (was she not housetrained properly too?). She, like Andrew and Charles, has had teddy bear issues-
when the Royal Collection restored a childhood toy that had been ripped by her dog she refused to pay the £500 bill, paying £200 and leaving the Royal Collection to pay the rest. Dotty’s mother, Florence, bit a maid, Ruby Brooker, who was ‘persuaded’ not to take matters further. Then Dotty bit two boys in Windsor Great Park – a seven-year-old on the back, arm and leg, and the other on the collarbone and leg. She pleaded guilty to letting her dog run out of control and was ordered to pay to the parents. They were angry as the maximum was a £5000 fine with the dog being destroyed, and felt, quite rightly, that Dotty was a danger to society. The Queen’s animal psychologist, Roger Mumford, claimed in court that a pack mentality that can lead to wariness of any outsider had led to the incident. If this is true – I don’t have the knowledge to confirm – then surely that still made Dotty a threat , so why was it not grounds to destroy Dotty? Maybe because the mentality could be reversed through training, but one wonders if the pack mentality evidence was true for Dotty or just another example of rules bent for royalty. Anne was ordered to keep Dotty on a lead until she had been to appropriate obedience classes, but Hoey says there’s no record of her complying. (why couldn’t Princess Anne, with her ample resources and dog world connections have had her dogs trained properly in the first place? The killing fo the Queen’s corgi took place before the boys were bitten, so surely she should have been extra careful to keep Dotty on a leash and retrain her?)
The case made her the first royal to have a criminal record, but is mainly forgotten now, ironically given her reputation as one of the best royals, and Andrew’s worse alleged crimes, which haven’t even had a trial. I read an old thread on a dog training board which was very critical of her I don’t know people are aware of the dog issues more widely, as they are with other murky things relating to the royals.

Pengate showed us the real Charles.

That is awful. Dotty should have been put down. I had no idea the Queen saw no issue with her dogs biting servants.

@antelopevalley
Valet Fawcett was also in charge of squeezing toothpaste onto the then-Prince of Wales’ monogrammed toothbrush, shaving his face, helping him put on trousers and lacing up his shoes. He laid out the royal’s pajamas and turned down his bed nightly.

My father was valet to several of the nobility and royal the family in the 1930s and 40s. These things were standard, part of the job. Including ironing the Times and sewing it up the middle before taking it up to the bedroom; running the bath to the exact required temperature; toothpaste on the brush; shaving kit laid out. In the hunting season hours spent brushing the dried mud off riding clothes. On and on it went.
But he did see the world in the days when ordinary people, on the whole, never went abroad. And his skill at packing suitcases was legendary (in our family, that is) He could pack two cases worth of stuff in one - and it came out mostly uncreased