King Charles III - How Will He Reign?

Dear Reader,

The new King has arrived, but how will he influence the country over the next years of his reign?

The nature of the King will remain intact, I am sure,  but what will carry over is the influence of both his parents, who both greatly encouraged his interest in the countryside and the arts in general. Prince Philip was deeply involved with various activities to do with conservation and wildlife, viz. his presentation on BBC in 1960 on that very subject, and taking up the presidency of the World Wildlife Fund.

As I was more than 4 years old when Prince Charles was born, I rather feel as though I grew up with him, and followed his development in the press. One of the things that were revealed about him was his offbeat sense of humour, possessing a great liking for the Goon Show that used to be on the radio 70 years ago. The radio was marvellous in many respects, particularly when it came to the kind of humour found in the Goon Show, and music.

I very much shared his love of the humour of the Goon Show members, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, so I began to picture the way that the Prince thought about things. Of course, he had access to so many resources that I could not aspire to, but I do admire his determination to properly learn the Welsh language before he became the Prince of Wales in 1969. And he used that skill when he visited Wales last week.

The Prince, however, wasted little time in putting his life to very practical use in his establishment of various charities, but charities that were not just there in his name but are areas of application that he fully applied himself to. These are the main charities still extant, created by the then Prince of Wales (now King Charles III):

The Prince's Trust is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11 to 30-year-olds and those struggling at school and at risk of exclusion or who are unemployed. Many of the young people helped by The Trust are in or leaving care, facing issues such as homelessness or mental health problems, or have been in trouble with the law.

The Prince's Countryside Fund is a charity founded in 2010. The Fund is a limited company and a registered charity. The fund provides approximately more than £1 million per year in grant funding and support for initiatives such as The Prince's Farm Resilience Programme to projects located within the United Kingdom. To the year 2019, over 250 projects throughout the UK have received over £9 million in grant funding. Projects have ranged from support for farmer networks and cooperatives to funding for community-run shops and pubs, transport schemes in isolated areas, and business skills support for enterprises in the countryside.

The Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts (PSTA) is a school in London which teaches students at the postgraduate degree level, and short open courses and in the community. The school was founded in 2005 as part of The Prince's Charities group, with the aim "to continue the living traditions of the world's sacred and traditional art forms".

The Prince's Foundation (formerly the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture until 2001, the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment until 2012, and the Prince's Foundation for Building Community until 2018) is an educational charity established in 1986 to teach and demonstrate in practice those principles of traditional urban design and architecture which put people and the communities of which they are part at the centre of the design process.

A person who worked closely with the former Prince of Wales from the early 1980s until the time of his death in 2020 was Keith Critchlow, an outstanding professor of architecture, artist, lecturer, author and Sacred Geometer.

Critchlow founded the Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts (VITA) department in 1984, which moved from the Royal College of Art to The Prince's Institute of Architecture in 1992-3, where he was director of research. This institute later evolved into The Prince's Foundation, within which the Prince's School of Traditional Arts (PSTA) is housed. He was professor emeritus at PSTA and served as director of research. He also taught at The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.

A famous name in American architecture and design, Buckminster Fuller, once wrote of Critchlow:

Keith Critchlow has one of the century's rare conceptual minds. He is continually inspired by the conceptioning of both earliest and latest record. He lauds the work of others while himself pouring forth, in great modesty, whole vista-filling new realizations of nature's mathematical structuring.. He is one of the most inspiring scholar-teachers I have had the privilege to know.

Amongst many important projects, in 1983 Critchlow was asked by Indian philosopher and author Jiddu Krishnamurti to design the Krishnamurti Study Centre in Hampshire, UK, which was completed in 1986.

His other architectural works included the Lindisfarne Chapel in Crestone, Colorado, in the United States with a special design for the vaulting of the dome, and a hospital, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi, India (pictured below). His use of sacred geometry played a major role in these architectural designs and projects.

In his association with broad-minded and inspired people like Critchlow, who embraced both Islamic and Indian philosophy and architecture as well as ancient learning, the Prince exhibited his willingness to support the idea of a multi-faith country in which he would be (and now is) the defender of all faiths.

And all of that is intertwined with the King's interest in agriculture and the countryside, the very basis on which we depend for our food.

In short, I see the King as very much qualified and able to impart words of wisdom and commonsense to all who work near him, whether it's the Prime Minister of the day, the Privy Council or even the Commonwealth leaders, particularly during their intermittent conferences.

To me, he shows every sign of being able to help lead the UK through these turbulent times and into a New Age that is very soon going to make its appearance. It will be an age when all the skills that the King has acquired will be seen to be entirely relevant. Of that I am certain.

Long Live The King!

Thank you for reading this.