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Charles requests Jools Holland track on community radio visit

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Sheppy FM (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Sheppy FM (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)

The Prince of Wales asked for a tune by Jools Holland when he visited a community radio station with the Duchess of Cornwall.

Presenters from Sheppey FM in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent had researched some of Charles’s favourite songs before the couple’s visit.

Tracks played during the 46-minute royal tour were an eclectic mix, including Givin’ Up, Givin’ In by The Three Degrees, La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf, Upside Down by Diana Ross, and Charles Trenet crooning La Mer.

But when Charles and Camilla went into the studio and the prince was invited to pick a favourite, he came up with something not on the list.

“I tell you what… if you’ve got anything by Jools Holland,” he said, giving a namecheck to his friend, who is a regular visitor to Sandringham when Charles is in residence during the summer. “He lives in Kent.”

Presenters Maz Camilleri and Anna Gillingham-Sutton, who said they had researched the prince’s favourite songs on Google, found him a song featuring Holland and Ruby Turner, You Are So Beautiful.

The Prince of Wales meets members of he sewing class during a visit to Sheppey Matters (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)
The Prince of Wales meets members of he sewing class during a visit to Sheppey Matters (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)

The royal couple began a day of engagements in Kent at Sheppey Matters, a community health organisation set up in Sheerness in 1994 to encourage healthier lifestyles because of concerns about high rates of illness in the area.

They met a wide range of local organisations, including a men’s mental health group, a support group for families affected by ADHD and autism, women who enjoy Nordic walking, and others who meet to share their love of crafting and sewing.

Camilla and Charles also met Syrian refugee Osama Khaled Sharkia, 25, and his family who have been helped to settle in the county by the Kent Refugee Action Network after being moved to the UK by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Prince of Wales Syrian refugee Osama Khaklid Sharkia (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)
The Prince of Wales Syrian refugee Osama Khaklid Sharkia (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) (PA Wire)

The family arrived in Britain in 2018 after earlier fleeing to Jordan and Mr Sharkia is now studying computer science at Canterbury Christ Church University.

“At my age I’m too old to to learn,” Charles told the student.

Later a film prop from a classic Hollywood movie left Charles impressed when he travelled to a visitor attraction chronicling some of the Royal Navy’s most famous warships.

Charles was given a guided tour of a huge model of Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, from the 1941 film That Hamilton Woman, during his trip to the Historic Dockyard Chatham in Kent.

The prince is a former Royal Navy officer who captained the mine hunter HMS Bronington for 10 months in 1976 and supports the visitor attraction as patron.

Paul Barnard, the dockyard’s chief operating officer, told Charles about the display’s history and said afterwards: “The model was actually on display in a pizza parlour on a naval base in San Francisco and they were going to dispose of it.

The Prince of Wales visited the historic dockyard in Chatham (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Wire)
The Prince of Wales visited the historic dockyard in Chatham (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Wire)

“He was fascinated by the story, he was surprised to know it was a film prop because it looks so much like a scale representation rather than a prop and he was interested to know the story and where it came from.”

That Hamilton Woman tells the story of Emma Hamilton played by Vivien Leigh who was the soulmate of England’s greatest naval hero Lord Nelson, played by Leigh’s then husband Sir Laurence Olivier.

Mr Barnard said: “You would have a couple of people inside the ship when they were filming. This was long before the days of CGI.”

He explained the model was bought in 1996, adding: “We ended up acquiring it because is a fantastic scale representation of Victory itself – they charged us effectively £200.

“The real cost was in rebuilding it when we acquired it, we had to piece it back together because when it was shipped, it was broken up into pieces and we had to rebuild it. And you rebuild it very much like a ship itself.”

The visitor attraction opens to the public on Saturday and Charles was given a tour of some of the exhibits that will be on display including items from the Diving Deep exhibition, open from February 12, which tells the story of the archaeological excavation of the sunken warship HMS Invincible.