Transcript: Prince Charles

Prince Charles Talks To Steve Kroft

(CBS)  On September 15, 2005, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft spoke with Prince Charles about his life and work as Prince and heir to the throne.

Below is a transcript of that conversation, which took place as they strolled – and then stopped for a chat – in a community garden in Poundbury, outside Dorchester, England.

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STEVE KROFT: So, this is the central garden?

PRINCE CHARLES: This is where people, different residents, have their own bit of garden. So they all come in here and can dig their gardens and have their vegetables.

KROFT: Do you have a plot here?

PRINCE CHARLES: No, I don't. No, I got me own.

KROFT: Are you familiar with any of the plants here?

PRINCE CHARLES: Yeah, I know some of them.

KROFT: Talking to any of them?

PRINCE CHARLES: No, no, no. (LAUGHS) No, I do it all the time. Not here. (LAUGHTER)

KROFT: You've gotten more mileage out of that, I think than almost anything.

PRINCE CHARLES: Just shows you can't make a joke.

KROFT: You can't make a joke?

PRINCE CHARLES: Without them taking it seriously. So, it's the same old story. Now do you want to sit?

KROFT: Okay.

PRINCE CHARLES: I think so. Is that alright? A bench has been cunningly provided.

KROFT: Most of us in our lives have to fill out applications listing our profession and occupation. You don’t have to do that.

PRINCE CHARLES: No. Not always, but sometimes.

KROFT: If you did, what would you put down?

PRINCE CHARLES: That’s always a difficult question. But basically, I mean as far as I’m concerned, I would list it as worrying about this country and its inhabitants. And trying to do my utmost to find ways of helping, or bringing people together, or finding better solutions, generally minding, and looking after, encouraging, thanking, everything else. It seems to me that’s my particular duty. I find myself born into this particular position. I’m determined to make the most of it, and to do whatever I can to help. I hope to leave things behind a little bit better then I found them. It’s hard to say, but I think it is a profession actually. Doing what I’m doing.

KROFT: It is.

PRINCE CHARLES: Because if you tried it for a bit you might find out how difficult it is.

KROFT: You could conceivably put down: farmer, landlord, real estate developer, product distributor, pilot, polo player. There are lots of things that you’ve done that most people don’t know anything about.

PRINCE CHARLES:
Yes, I’m lucky to be able to do some of these things, but I don’t think I could say that I’ve done any of them particularly well, but you know I’ve tried my hand at all sorts of things. I try to see, you know, what I can do to benefit other people in different ways. For instance, I think you mentioned product developer, or something, or entrepreneur. What I have tried to do is start my own little company making, you know, organic products: food, biscuits. And that’s been quite successful. That’s grown and now turns over 40 million pounds a year, and I’m able to give away over a million pounds each year to my charitable ventures. So that’s given me great, you know, satisfaction.

KROFT: You’re not going to try and sell us something here?

PRINCE CHARLES: Oh you never know. (LAUGHTER)

KROFT: As I think you first said many years ago, there’s no real job requirement for you. You could have spent your life skiing or playing polo. How did you come to invent this job? What was it that made you decide to do it?

PRINCE CHARLES: Well (LAUGHTER) I was born into it. So inevitably, you know, as time goes by, you develop more knowledge and understanding, I hope, of this particular country and, you know, its characteristics and characteristics of its people. The more you find out about the way it works, and its institutions and its organizations, and the communities that make it up, the more you are then able, as it were, to network, I hope, effectively in order to help in these different areas where something isn’t working. I can’t resist trying to find a way of bringing people together to look at the issue in a more, you know, integrated way.

Interestingly, the number of times I manage to get people around a table to look at a particular issue, they will tell you that this is the first time they’ve all sat down together. One of the reasons being that so many people are working in their own particular field -- it’s like working in a railway cutting -- so they don’t actually see over the banks. But sometimes if you can get them all together, they start seeing everything from each other’s point of view. And you then get a better result.

KROFT: And you’re in a position to do that?

PRINCE CHARLES: Yes. I’m lucky because I haven’t got an ax to grind. So I mean I try to help by bringing people together to look at issues, you know, and then find a solution. I’m not going to start crowing about these things. I’ve managed to get all sorts of things done that way. People don’t realize that I was, perhaps, initiating it through having people to a dinner or a lunch in the first place, which has led to people talking to each other and then reporting back. And then that’s led to a setting up of an organization to take that on.

I mean for instance, one example if it interests you. I was finding that I was receiving increasing number of letters from people over 50 years old quite some years ago. These were people who were being, you know, de-manned, de-laired, and everything else. You remember how there was a great fashion of getting rid of people, but they were always over 50. And so many of them were writing to me saying, “Help. I can’t find another job. Is there a way of setting up my own little business or something?” So, anyway, I thought there must be a big problem out there. So I got together with a whole lot of people from my Prince’s Trust, which, apart from other things, sets young people up in their own businesses. I got them together with people from the organizations that represent the elderly and others. We all got together, and I said, “Come on. Let’s see if we can devise a scheme for helping over 50s to start their own businesses.” So they’ve done that. It took quite a long time.

What I’m saying is, I keep aware of all the things that are going on in this country. And then I try to spot the things that need tackling.

The trouble is very often I’ve tried to say, “We ought to be tackling this one or that one,” before people realize it’s a problem. So they then accuse you of not knowing what the hell you were talking about. Do you know what I mean?

KROFT: I do. You raise about $200 million a year with 16 different charities. You’re the largest non-profit conglomerate in the country. How much of your time does that take? Is that your primary commitment?

PRINCE CHARLES: Well a lot of the time, as you can imagine. If you’re trying to raise the resources to be able to keep these different enterprises going in different fields, then you have to, you know, spend quite a lot of time, apart from everything else, thanking people, otherwise they’re not going to go on helping. Do you know what I mean? So a lot of the time I’m writing letters to people and thanking, and then trying to get them to come and look at this or that or whatever, to try to inspire people to give a hand here and there to help in these areas which I feel need help. And so, yes, it’s putting all that sort of thing together is a major operation.

Now, I’m getting a bit better at it, and a bit more professional, so we’ve now got a central unit in my office which deals with all this charitable side. As you get older, you begin to realize that perhaps the way I was doing it before was a bit amateur.

KROFT: Which of the charities are you the most proud of?

PRINCE CHARLES: Well obviously I’m very proud of the Prince’s Trust, which is 30 years old next year. I’m amazed by how it’s grown and to the extent that now, we’ve helped over half a million young people in that period, and the numbers each year we set up in business -- sort of four or 5,000 a year. That’s very encouraging, because, again, it gives me immense pride in these young people, many of whom have come from very difficult backgrounds. They couldn’t get money from banks or any of these other agencies. And we’ve been able to help them, and they’ve gone on to set up really valuable enterprises through their own determination and courage and everything else. We’ve helped ex-prisoners and young offenders, and what is wonderful is when people write to me all the time saying, “You know, I would’ve committed suicide because I was addicted to drugs or whatever, if it hadn’t been for the Prince’s Trust,” trying to give people, you know, an opportunity, developing their potential, their talents. Everybody has something lurking somewhere. It’s just they aren’t always brought out. If we can develop self-confidence and self-esteem, that’s what really gets people going. So, that’s what I’m particularly proud of. I’m also very proud of my Foundation for the Built Environment, which has been going for nearly 20 years now, since I first started. And again, what I’ve been trying to do there is investing and training of new practitioners who understand these really important principles. It’s a lot of effort, as you can imagine, involved in investing and producing these people for the future, because we’re all talking about, you know, better design, better quality and all this, but we haven’t got the practitioners that know how to do it. So, you know, I’m proud of that, because that’s been a hell of a struggle.

KROFT: Do you think if you weren’t doing this stuff, that it would get done?

PRINCE CHARLES: If I wasn’t doing it? No. No, I know my Foundation for the Built Environment is the only one of its kind, providing an alternative to the current conventional world, which is the throwaway society view.

I’ve been trying to encourage people to see that we’ve got to alter our way of looking at things. I mean, I actually believe our current model for economic progress needs serious revision.