Secrets of Charles and Camilla’s VERY conventional Highland Hogmanay

Just earlier than Hogmanay 2004, Prince Charles, as he was then, whisked his long-term accomplice Camilla Parker-Bowles off to Scotland for a romantic break.

Their vacation spot was Birkhall, Charles’s beloved personal bolthole on the Balmoral property. And it was there, on a frosty evening in entrance of a roaring hearth, the place Charles ‘sank to at least one knee in entrance of the lady he liked and popped the query’.

It is little shock that the King selected to suggest at Birkhall, a spot he as soon as known as ‘a singular haven of cosiness and character’ and which is rumoured to be his favorite dwelling. After all, it’s stated to be the one considered one of his residences the place he can actually loosen up. Away from the prying eyes of court docket and his topics he can stick on a pair of wellies and go for a ramble, or look out the great whisky and calm down in a favorite chair with the papers.

Perhaps for this reason, since that significantly particular New Year practically 20 years in the past, the King and Queen have spent nearly each Hogmanay since in Scotland, at Birkhall.

This yr, Christmas at Sandringham – an immovable feast within the Royal calendar – was a very busy affair. The visitor record was expanded to incorporate the Queen’s youngsters and grandchildren, which means some workers had to surrender their rooms to accommodate additional company.

There was additionally the standard stroll to church on Christmas morning adopted by a proper lunch and a Boxing Day shoot involving various members of the family, in addition to the legendary alternate of gag presents (Princess Anne apparently introduced her brother Charles with a white leather-based bathroom seat one yr).

It’s little surprise then, that when the wrapping paper has been cleared away and the Boxing Day kedgeree completed, the King and Queen are in want of just a little respite.

The King’s Birkhall New Year custom is one thing he has clearly been unwilling to surrender since ascending the throne. His mom’s routine was to remain at Sandringham till the primary week of February – with a purpose to mark the demise of her father King George VI, who died on February 6, 1952 – but Charles is clearly eager to plough his personal furrow.

Last yr he and Camilla headed to Birkhall as typical, though there was, for the primary time, the addition of the sovereign’s purple containers, which can once more journey north with him. But in any other case, the King’s time on the baronial dwelling – casual, relaxed, down at dwelling – is unchanged.

Birkhall New Years, then, have their very own explicit flavour. There are sometimes a couple of home company – Camilla’s sister Annabel Elliot and her husband Simon are common guests, as is former Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames, an amazing buddy of the King. The couple’s two Jack Russell terriers, Bluebell and Beth, additionally come. The crowd is described as ‘very a lot Charles and Camilla’s set’ – which is probably why, within the early years, William and Harry gave it a large berth.

William and Kate did, nonetheless, spend their first Hogmanay as a married couple at Birkhall in 2011, whereas the 2 additionally pitched up in 2009 with Kate’s mother and father Michael and Carole Middleton in tow, sparking rumours a proposal was within the offing (it might, the truth is, come ten months later in Kenya).

While the times are usually relaxed, there was the occasional raucous Birkhall Hogmanay bash to see within the bells. In 2006, two of Charles’s private cooks have been understood to have been dropped at prepare dinner a grand dinner, getting ready prime Highland cattle steak, gamebirds shot close to the river Dee, domestically caught salmon and mushrooms grown by Charles himself. Booze included a 50-year-old malt whisky. Camilla, in the meantime, did the flower arranging, ceilidh music was performed and company, apparently, wore tartan.

An insider revealed Charles would ‘pull out all of the stops for his occasion, which can most likely go on into the early hours of the morning’. Gosh. No surprise the King as soon as instructed mates on Deeside: ‘At Balmoral there’s numerous dancing, and at Birkhall there’s numerous consuming.’

In reality, there has solely ever been one factor off the menu for Hogmanay occasion celebrations at Birkhall: fireworks, because it was feared the noise may scare Charles’s prize Indian Runner geese. While the geese – which Charles launched to the Balmoral property in 2005 and are rumoured to have irritated the late Queen as a result of their fleet-footedness meant they have been without end setting off safety sensors – are believed to be no extra, it’s possible that fireworks will stay off menu, significantly as Hogmanay at Birkhall nowadays is believed to be a extra sedate, low-key affair.

One factor that’s for sure, nonetheless, is that the visitor record stays extremely unique.

Few have crossed the edge of Birkhall – it’s not a spot the place the King entertains dignitaries (that’s what Balmoral is for), nor even many neighbours. When they maintain an annual ball, workers put up a marquee.

Although a whole bunch of 1000’s has been spent on revamping the property because it handed to Charles in 2002 following the demise of the Queen Mother, it’s believed some relics from its earlier proprietor nonetheless stay in residence. It has been claimed that among the Queen Mother’s Vanity Fair ‘Spy’ cartoons nonetheless line the staircase, and that a few of her blue raincoats nonetheless cling within the corridor.

A downstairs lavatory is known as ‘Arthur’s Seat’ after a favorite member of the Queen Mother’s family. It is, in each sense of the phrase, a household dwelling, a completely totally different prospect from the rambling corridors and stiff formality that the Queen caught to at close by Balmoral.

Some of the few invited company at Birkhall are the native purple squirrels. ‘We get them chasing one another spherical and spherical inside,’ the King stated as soon as.

‘If I sit quietly, they are going to achieve this round me. Sometimes, after I go away my jackets on a chair with nuts within the pockets, I see them with their tails protruding, as they hunt for nuts. They are extremely particular creatures.’

In some ways Charles is following within the footsteps of Birkhall’s earlier proprietor, his grandmother, who nonetheless entertained shut mates at what she known as the ‘little massive home’ into her nineties, the place company can be handled to out of doors picnics, regardless of the climate, adopted by livid video games of racing demon after dinner – to not point out an everyday provide of gin.

Her late niece Margaret Rhodes as soon as recalled: ‘At the top of the meal she would begin a sequence of toasts. As nicely as “Hooray for” with glasses held excessive, there was much more of “Down with”, with glasses nearly disappearing beneath the desk. Combined with the nostalgic sing-songs, [it] all the time made for an unforgettable night.’

It is probably notable too that one frequent visitor in these days was a younger Prince of Wales, who, when at college, loved receiving letters from his grandmother bursting with information in regards to the Birkhall gardens and the workers.

The couple’s first Hogmanay at Birkhall, when the King proposed on bended knee, was one thing of a logistical nightmare. The pair had spent Christmas aside – Charles at Sandringham, Camilla along with her youngsters Tom and Laura, and their respective households.

Charles had first to safe the assist of his sons William and Harry and of his mom the sovereign earlier than asking for Camilla’s hand, with the Queen apparently agreeing that ‘regularising’, in royal parlance, Camilla’s position was one of the best plan of action for the effectivity of the Royal Family. She even agreed to Charles selecting Camilla’s engagement ring from the Queen Mother’s assortment.

It was clearly a cheerful event: not solely have they returned nearly yearly since, Charles and Camilla spent their honeymoon at Birkhall too. But in 2015, the royal couple discovered themselves on the centre of a nationwide catastrophe when, the evening earlier than Hogmanay, Camilla woke as much as the sound of speeding water and the rumble of boulders in what she later described as ‘probably the most scary noise I’ve ever heard in my life’.

Storm Frank had arrived in Royal Deeside to wreak great havoc. When Charles went exterior he discovered his restoration challenge on the Birkhall gardens – which he had been engaged on for years – was in ruins.

The land, which features a conventional kitchen backyard the place greens and slicing flowers are grown, was sectioned off by varied hedges. Camilla loved utilizing crops from the backyard in flower preparations in the home.

But on that morning in 2015, most of it was flooded, and an enormous a part of the backyard had been destroyed when the close by River Muick burst its banks, damaging a bridge resulting in the property. A gazebo, a memorial to the Queen Mother, roses, fruit bushes and fruit and vegetable patches have been additionally washed away.

Ballater had fared even worse, and when the King went into the village to go to he discovered that various companies had been flooded, knee deep in water, as have been many houses. Abergeldie Castle, close to Birkhall, was at risk of collapsing into the River Dee. Many farmers within the area misplaced gear as a result of surge of storm water and a few of their livestock drowned.

In the next days the King intervened to assist flood victims, with the Prince’s Countryside Fund interesting to the general public to assist to create a aid fund.

That yr, Hogmanay at Birkhall got here and went with out fanfare. There have been no events or jolly gatherings, because the Royal couple did what they may to assist the flood aid effort.

The couple paid various visits to Ballater, together with one to see flood victims rehoused in a neighborhood barracks, and known as in favours from outdated mates, together with a name from the King to Jim Walker, of Walkers shortbread, who agreed to ship biscuits and shortbread to the emergency providers.

Eight years on a lot of the realm has been regenerated, together with the King’s beloved gardens at Birkhall, however native affection for his rolled-up sleeves angle in the direction of the storm harm stays. Since then, the couple have solely missed one Hogmanay at Birkhall, in 2020, when journey restrictions in the course of the Covid lockdown meant they have been unable to move north and as an alternative needed to keep put down south.

This yr at Birkhall, the King’s second within the prime job and his first because the Coronation, will little question be an opportunity for reflection on a rare yr and plans for what’s to return.

And what higher setting to do it than within the place the place he feels most at dwelling, after a bracing stroll across the grounds, and with a whisky in hand?