LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

Camilla Says Her Elevation to Queen-in-Waiting Is a ‘Great Honor’

Camilla Parker Bowles gave her first interview since it was announced she will one day be queen.

Camilla Parker Bowles has described her formal elevation to queen-in-waiting as “a great honor” and pledged to use her position to continue to shine a light on the “taboo subject” of domestic violence.

Camilla, 74, made her comments in an interview with the long-running BBC radio show Woman’s Hour.

It was the first time she has spoken at length about her new position since Queen Elizabeth, 95, used the 70th anniversary of her ascension to the throne to issue a statement saying that it was her “sincere wish” that Camilla would be named queen consort when her husband Prince Charles takes the throne, in what she diplomatically termed “the fullness of time.“

The timing of the queen’s unilateral endorsement of Queen Camilla was unexpected, although there had long been little doubt that Prince Charles would seek to make Camilla queen, going back on a long-standing pledge by the royal family that Camilla would be known by the lesser title of princess. This compromise was engineered when she married Prince Charles in 2005, out of respect for the memory and position of his first wife, Diana, who died in 1997. Since her marriage to Charles, Camilla has used the title Duchess of Cornwall rather than Princess of Wales, as Diana was known.

When asked about her elevation by interviewer Emma Barnett, Camilla said, “Of course, it’s a great honor, it couldn’t be anything else.”

She said that her position would help her keep the issue of domestic violence in the media spotlight saying, “I’m going to keep up with these causes. You know if I start something like this, I’m not going to give up… I hope I should be doing it for a lifetime.”

“We do need to help culture change. And I think we have to start at the beginning, I think children at school have got to be taught respect.

“We have got to go back to the beginnings and... just build up this idea that you have to have respect for human beings, it’s lack of respect.

“It’s treating women like chattels and people thinking they can get away with it. I’m sure a lot of people do it and think that there's nothing wrong.

“I don't think (the issue of abuse has) got any better. I think the lockdown was terrible because people actually couldn’t escape. And you see the numbers have gone up.

“But on the other hand, I think it’s drawn a lot of people’s attention to it. I think it’s talked about much more now.”

Camilla, who recently caught COVID, also spoke about this summer’s diamond jubilee celebrations, saying they would be an opportunity to party, commenting, “It’s always lovely to have something happy to look forward to, isn’t it? I mean, we've all been through hard times. We’ve all been locked away from our family and friends. And now we could all get together again and celebrate.”

Camilla was reunited during the show with a domestic abuse survivor she had previously met, Diana Parkes, whose daughter, Joanna Simpson, was killed by her husband in 2010.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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