A new biography of King Charles III has revealed some information that at once can be seen as embarrassing, comical and even callous. The newly minted king’s former valet, Michael Fawcett, was in charge of caring for the then-Prince of Wales’s favorite teddy bear from childhood. And so anytime it needed mending, he would call the former nanny Mabel Anderson, who came out of retirement to make any repairs. She was the only one ever allowed to take a needle and thread to the stuffed animal well into Charles’s 40s.
And every time the teddy bear needed to be repaired, you would think he was his own child having major surgery. What emerges is a caricature of the man who would be king – something right out of a storybook. Charles would also have his valet put toothpaste on his toothbrush into his 30s and would lay out his pajamas for him, which would frustrate Princess Diana. Some of these things he simply refused to do, feeling it was beneath him.
These anecdotes reveal a level of helplessness, entitlement and dysfunction within Britain’s royal family that most of us could never imagine possible. In a world where people go to bed hungry, are unable to pay rent, struggle to make ends meet and mired in war, the affluence and aristocracy surrounding a staff to preserve an inanimate object belonging to a descendant of royalty serves as a reminder of just how vast the divide is between the haves and the have-nots. It’s certainly a wakeup call that reveals a level of triviality that’s beyond the pale.
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