King Charles has attended his first official engagement since Prince Harry’s withering memoir Spare was released this week.
The monarch visited a community shed project in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire in Scotland this morning, to tour its new facilities and meet local hardship support groups.
He was seen beaming as he met people involved in the community scheme, despite the torrent of headlines that have followed the publication of his youngest son’s memoir.
During the King’s Scottish engagement, he is due to meet Lord Lieutenant Sandy Manson before being given a tour of the Community Shed’s ground floor.
At the home of the Aboyne Men’s Shed workshop, Charles is set to watch craft skills in action, including wood and stone carving, and meet the men who gather there weekly. He is also expected to meet representatives from other charities and voluntary groups, including the Inverurie-based Aberdeenshire North Foodbank, Gordon Rural Action and Young at Heart Deeside.
Spare is already the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, according to its publisher, Transworld Penguin Random House.
The book does not hold back in its criticism of the royal family, with allegations of an altercation between William and Harry, claims Camilla had an “agenda” to repair her public image as the “other woman” in his father’s marriage.
Harry goes into intensely private detail about his family, known for the Queen’s mantra ‘never complain, never explain’.
Stories about Charles include claims he carried out a “pitiful teddy bear” that was “broken arms and dangly threads”.
Harry said, as boys, it was he and William’s sadness over seeing their father lonely with the bear that encouraged them to eventually welcome Camilla into the family.
Their one condition, Harry claims, was “just don’t marry her”.
In the book, Harry also opens up more generally about his relationship with his father.
Writing about the moment Charles told them Diana had died, Harry said: “He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?
“But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said: It’s going to be OK. That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue.”
Speaking about the record sales, president and publisher of the Random House Group Gina Centrello said: “While many books by public figures can be fairly categorized as ‘celebrity memoir,’ Spare is not that.
“Vulnerable and heartfelt, brave and intimate, Spare is the story of someone we may have thought we already knew, but now we can truly come to understand Prince Harry through his own words.
“Looking at these extraordinary first day sales, readers clearly agree, Spare is a book that demands to be read, and it is a book we are proud to publish.”
