The average age of the seven minor working royals is 76 - should younger members take on more

[Solent123]

Excluding the King, Queen and the Wales family there are seven other working members of the Royal family with a combined average age of 76, carrying out hundreds of engagements every year - for example the Duke of Kent is 89 and still carries out regular engagements - should younger members take on more or will all these engagements become unnecessary in the future as Charles streamlines things.

They are,
Duke Of Edinburgh - 68
Duchess Of Edinburgh 59
Duke Of Gloucester 80
Duchess Of Gloucester 78
Princess Royal 74
Duke Of Kent 89
Princess Alexandra 87

To be honest, the engagements aren't that taxing-let them carry on doing them. It'll make them feel important and relevant, bless them.

should younger members take on more or will all these engagements become unnecessary in the future as Charles streamlines things.

Can't imagine there's much interest in seeing leeches like Zara or the grasping York sisters plus their hanger-on hubbies cutting ribbons.

Charities have been shown not to benefit financially from royal connections. In fact around 75% reportedly hadn't seen 'their' royal for up to two years so there doesn't seem much benefit in increasing involvement there.

Willy could certainly do more but has already indicated he doesn't intend to apparently preferring to concentrate on his 'big projects'. Additionally we now learn he has all that time consuming WhatsApping to do keeping up with his skims.

Charles isn't streamlining anything least of all his take.

In the 1970s, Richard Duke of Gloucester and his wife were not long married. Someone I know went to an event that they were at - maybe opening a school or something. She reported that the young duchess was a 'plain little thing', not with huge malice, but a little bit of a sneer. People do love to insult others.
Is it fair to say that the two of them have put in 50? years of quiet service?

Absolutely this!

Yes. Also I think that was an unfair description of the Duchess, I think she has a kind face.

No, they all need to fade away. Let future generations of Royals become independent citizens and stop living off the state. At the same time the Duchy should return land to the state. The royal system is unfair and cruel.

"working"

i know, laughable, isn't it

It's yet another transparency fail.

Royalists will tell you the Court Circular doesn't paint a full picture and the whole lot are flat out behind the scenes but while it and it's acres of empty days are all we have to go on they're yet to explain why they're so sure.

“I think she has a kind face”

Ouch!! 😆

I didn't mean it as an ouch! Should have said pleasant or something more flattering.

Aren't the younger royals busy working regular jobs? You can't have it both ways. Either a slimmed down monarchy or support a bigger group of them.

Whatever any of them do or don't do, none of them will ever see a poor day - ever.

Instead of cutting ribbons and pulling the cord on on a bit of a curtain somewhere and handing over all the bouquets received on their peregrinations around every charity going, this is my solution -

A slice (a big Victoria Sandwich size) of the Sovereign Grant cake (or from Charles humungous private bank account) should be divvied up amongst all the charities they are patrons of. Make an announcement to show how great and benevolent they are for each donation. Job done.

Saves travel and expenses, security etc. costs
Saves petrol and saves the planet
Nobody required to dress up and use the Royal Land Rover and prance around.
Doesn't matter if there is only one or two of them left to do the soft diplomacy home and abroad, they love that.

They can then all live quiet lives and not bore the knickers off the proletariat with their shenanigans and greed. That will still happen, but we won't see it.

What do you think, isn't that a great suggestion?

What @Havalona said!

Not forgetting arranging for all the royal treasures and most of the houses to be on display for us all to see. This will also preempt the "But their contribution to the tourist trade...." brigade.

I agree with you she looks kind. I took the phrasing to mean, she looks like someone genuine with whom you would enjoy a conversation and who would help out if someone was in need.

Not a bad thing imo.

And I will add my inevitable remark that Versailles doesn’t lack for tourists, despite the absence of living royals inhabiting it. (In fact, the ghosts of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI are a lot more glamorous and evocative than the reality of the current UK royals.)

I think although they would never admit it treating Harry and Meghan like absolute shite is biting the Royal family in the ass. The nieces and nephews of the monarch are too far removed to serve the same role. The Prince of Wales role would really would have benefited from a sibling in this generation.

I’m not saying that Harry and Meghan have behaved well since they left, they haven’t but I totally believe Harry that his father and brother’s palace’s pr teams were feeding stories about particularly his wife to the media and neither Charles nor William stopped it. People love quoting the queens “recollections may vary” thing but I think she handled the whole situation with Harry really badly - he and his wife were being mistreated and scapegoated and Harry was reacting to that.

Whatever anyone thinks of Harry he watched that happening to his mother for years and then his wife and he walked away from it.

@Alibababandthe40sheets I agree. The late Queen was a spectacularly bad mother and grandmother, whatever else you may think about her. And the palace PR people continue to be atrocious.

The Queen's parenting was very of her time and her class. I keep seeing videos of her on YouTube with Charles when he was young, in public she is very formal but in private much more loving and that is how it was in those days. So whilst I agree that by today's standards she wasn't a great parent I can understand that the mistakes she made were the same mistakes many many upper class parents made. I think William's generation have learnt and are determined to do better.

I don't find palace PR to be atrocious though. Look how popular Harry was when the men in grey suits he so despises were in charge. I don't buy that he has drastically changed since he left, I think all we are seeing is who he really is, an eternal victim in his own mind, obsessed with status and willing to throw anyone under the bus to make himself look good.

If Harry is correct that they fed stories to the press, he needs to provide actual evidence which so far he has failed to do. There does seem to be some trade off, as there is with all famous people, where the press don't print one story if they are offered another but nothing has been shown to be to Harry's detriment specifically.

I'm not saying it hasn't happened, because I don't know but he needs to provide proof rather than just his word. Harry has lied about so many things I am not willing to take his word on anything anymore.

I’m not getting into this but I genuinely don’t get why does he need to provide proof? Why can he not just speak what he believes to be true. He was there. He saw 2 generations of how things worked. He is just saying what he saw. On the other side I grew up watching story after story in the media about his mother I absolutely believe the palace fed at the very least some of those stories to the media and I never once saw it happen.

Only courtrooms require evidence everything else is just conversation.

I hope the younger tax payer funded royals continue to be as lazy and useless as they wish.

Take a scroll throughout this forum and folks seem more obsessed with Harry and Meghan going broke, Harry and Meghan getting divorced, Harry and Meghan flopping, Meghan wearing wrinkled clothes, Meghan being clingy, Meghan being an influencer than the RF doing the bare minimum.

If I looked around and saw that I could do wrong and get away with it. Why not?

Long may they continue to do the bare minimum loooool

I presume the royals themselves are aware of this and may have thought about it?

Why can (Harry) not just speak what he believes to be true

He can and he does, @Alibababandthe40sheets

It's just that when what he says is proved to be untrue he looks a fool or worse - and no courtroom style evidence required, since much of it's already fully in the public domain

Still, he appears to enjoy looking like a fool or worse, and that's entirely his choice