'There was a marked melancholy in everything he said...'

 Talking of Charles, one of the most entertaining passages in Byron Rogers's Me: The Official Biography describes the bizarre experience of being hired, out of the blue, as a speechwriter for the then Prince of Wales. A long-drawn-out, oblique and mystifying process over several months eventually results in Rogers getting a job interview, of sorts, with the Prince. Finally meeting the man, Rogers notes that 'there was a marked melancholy in everything he said. He found it hard to remember faces, and people were so annoyed at this, for they forgot how many faces he saw. Asked whether he was looking forward to going to America, where he was soon to go, he said no, not really; he had made it a practice not to look forward to anything, so that anything, if it happened, could surprise him. And then he said the strangest thing of all...'
   This was that, 'until the year before, he had not believed in the monarchy.' What had changed his mind had been the enthusiastic public response to the Jubilee, the way the crowds had greeted him and the Queen. So, presumably, if the response had been lukewarm we might have ended up with a republican on the throne. Bizarre indeed. Anyway, Charles takes Rogers on, and a month later the author is startled to hear (on the radio) one of his own lines being spoken by the Prince: 'I don't think it is generally known that Britain is self-sufficient in blackcurrants.' The speech (to the Farmers' Club) continues: 'In fact we lead the world in the production of blackcurrants. No imports disturb our trade figures, no foreign price rises threaten our economy ... Every year the wind blows through ten thousand acres of British blackcurrants...' 
  At one point Rogers in invited to a Palace Garden Party, and asks if he can bring his (thoroughly Welsh, thoroughly working-class) mother, who likes a day out. She, for obscure reasons, has to be invited separately, which means she must also be presented to the Prince. The following conversation ensues: 
'"Do you live in Carmarthen or outside it?"
"I now live outside it," said my mother, speaking with more care than I had ever heard her use, "but I have lived inside it."
"Have you really?" said the Prince, who seemed to be under the impression that she had somehow come out of the Matto Grosso. 
He then said, "You have a clever son."
And she, taken aback, said, "Do you think so?"
Through all this, ignored by both, I stood looking from one to the other, like an umpire at Wimbledon.
"What a nice man," said my mother after he had gone.
"Can you remember anything of what was said?"
"No."'