Transcript: Prince Charles

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.

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.

KROFT: You are prohibited, by law, from being involved in any kind of political issue.

PRINCE CHARLES: No, there's no law. Nothing is written. It's all an understanding.

KROFT: Which you honor. And at the same time, you are involved in a conglomerate of charities, of non-profit organizations, which are involved with things like problems in the inner city, agriculture, race relations. And you must, from time to time, come up against, like everyone else, run up against government policies . . .

PRINCE CHARLES: Yes.

KROFT: . . . that you think don't make any sense.

PRINCE CHARLES: Yes, yes.

KROFT: How do you deal with that? How do you walk that line?

PRINCE CHARLES: Well, years of practice, perhaps. But I mean, the great secret is never to get drawn into party politics, I think. I mean, you could say that politics now seems to have infiltrated every aspect of life, you know, if you're not careful. But I still think there are ways of doing it. People can then still accuse you all the same, of—being political -- they constantly do -- but all I've been trying to do, you know, is to address issues that I think have been perhaps ignored or abandoned by a particular government. So, whichever government is in power, I may appear to be talking about something that is in direct opposition to them. In fact, it's only because there are areas of life in this country which I feel get neglected. So, I feel unless somebody like myself has a goal to try and, you know, look after that bit at this particular time or this particular government, it's not going to get addressed

KROFT: Does it get you in a spot of trouble from time to time from certain people?

PRINCE CHARLES: Oh, inevitably, but it seems to be part and parcel of the thing. I mean, if I wasn't, I think, doing these things, I'd be accused by people like you, doing nothing with my life in today's world. (LAUGHTER)

KROFT: You see it as part of your role, part of your job?

PRINCE CHARLES: I do, yes. I do.

KROFT: Anybody ever tell you to tone it down a little bit?

PRINCE CHARLES: Oh yes, of course. But I think the proof is in the pudding. And I think, you know, all the things they try to tell me to tone down over the years, if you look now though, you'll find they're fairly mainstream. And I think you've got to have somebody like me, I think, who's relatively independent in today's world, because there are very few people, I think, who can be genuinely independent.

KROFT: You feel like you're making a difference?

PRINCE CHARLES: I don't know. I try. I only hope that when I'm dead and gone, they might appreciate it a little bit more. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes that happens.

KROFT: What is the most difficult part of your job? I mean, except for talking with people like me.

PRINCE CHARLES: Yes, exactly (LAUGHTER). I was going to say, 'talking to journalists.' Oh, dear. Well, what's the most difficult part of my job? I think, well, I've always believed that ever since I was quite young I think, that the most important thing is to be relevant.

It isn't easy, as you can imagine. Because if you say anything, people will say, "It's alright for you to say that." It's very easy to just dismiss anything I say. What I've tried to do is to put my money where my mouth is as much as I can, by actually creating, like here, models on the ground. If people don't like it, I'll go away and do it. And then perhaps once you've got something working, people might come and see and say, "Well, perhaps it does work after all," or whatever. But that is difficult. It is difficult.

KROFT: You are, in many ways, a public advocate for the traditional. What are the great parts of Great Britain that are worth preserving, besides the monarchy?

PRINCE CHARLES: (LAUGHS) Well, there's an awful lot of things that are worth preserving. I mean, the trouble I always feel in today's world, is that we tend to have adopted such a short-term outlook on life, that we've abandoned so many things unnecessarily, I believe. So often it's in the interest of, you know, efficiency. Whereas, I'm one of these people who believes that you need to find the right balance between, you know, the efficient and the aspects of life that make it worth living. And if you, you know, if you make everything over-efficient, you suck out, it seems to me, every last drop of what, up to now, has been known as culture, if you know what I mean. This is what terrifies me.

I was saying recently somewhere else that, you know, we rush now at such a speed everywhere that life has become so incredibly frenetic, that nobody has time to stop and adjust and think and reflect and recognize that because we're human, and we're not machines, that it is different to being, you know, the kind of sophisticated technology we've created. We are not the technology. It should be our slave, the technology. But it's rapidly becoming our master in many areas, I think. And why I feel so strongly about some of the more, you call them traditional things, I would call them timeless aspects of life, is because we do live on this planet. You know, it is part of a wider universe. It is also part and parcel of these great cycles of nature. And if we ignore them totally -- which is what I think we'd been doing -- and imagine that you can just do anything you like and it's still going to go on providing all the fantastic services that nature does, the sort of miraculous, everything grows when you think about it, and provides us with all these things, I mean, if we just think it's all happening because it's a random exercise, then I think we're, you know, we really are heading down a very dangerous path.

KROFT: Can you give me an example, or your favorite example, of being a slave to technology? And how it's changed things?

PRINCE CHARLES: In many ways, we're now building buildings that reflect our own technology. I mean, I would say that by all means, have all the technology. It's frightfully useful. But don't have your buildings looking like word processors or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Because as I was saying, I still think we need to recognize our own humanity.

Human beings are extraordinary in a sense that unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we seem to be able to bestride so much of the universe. We have it all within us. And that ability to imagine and to rationalize is totally unique. But at the same time, we have that other side of ourselves, the intuitive, the instinctive, which I believe is enormously important.

I mean, look at, for instance, what happened with our terrible tsunami disaster on Boxing Day last year. I mean, do you remember, first of all, in the areas of the coastline where they had grabbed up the mangrove swamps and had mined the coral reefs, basically nature's defenses against these sorts of things, had been removed. So, the damage was much greater there.

Secondly, it was the indigenous tribes' people and the birds and the animals which, about 24 hours before this thing struck, had moved to higher ground. And all I'm saying is that we need to have that ability not to lose touch with all our god-given senses. And at the moment, we seem to be concentrating purely on the rational. But I would've said that was the classic way to become extinct.

KROFT: Your charities and your work to a large extent is a reflection of your interest. And you can look at your various charities and draw the conclusion that you have some suspicions of some of the professional elites of medicine, science, technology, lawyers. Where does that come from?

PRINCE CHARLES: It comes from basically, I think, my being a teenager in the 1960s, and witnessing, I thought, the deliberate destruction and demolition of so many of the, you know, the worthwhile aspects of life all thrown away in and a terrific overexcitement about, you know, here we are. You know, we're rushing towards a marvelously bright, shining, progressive future. So, let's get rid of all the old traditional nonsenses that don't matter anymore. So, what happened was, I felt strongly that we were throwing away the baby with the bathwater. And maybe there were bits of bathwater that needed throwing away, alright, but we've thrown away too much. All I've been trying to do is remind the professionals that perhaps, you know, it'd be worth looking at things in a more integrated manner, instead of this zoned element.

What we've done in medicine for instance, I think, it's done wonders, medicine, obviously in the 21rst century and made a vast difference in people's lives.

But at the same time, I think they're beginning to find that we're also creating all sorts of side effects, which I believe can be mitigated by remembering that we are made of mind, body, and spirit, not just one thing, just a body, which is treated like a machine, which is the way it's gone. So I was just trying to remind the profession that perhaps, you know, some of these more traditional elements based on ancient wisdom and knowledge -- particularly wisdom about the nature and what you can extract from plants and the value that they can have in our world now – increasingly is worth remembering. Same thing with the architectural profession. Same thing with the agricultural.

KROFT: Are you trying to stop progress?

PRINCE CHARLES: No, not at all. I'm just trying to say that we ought to redefine the way in which progress is seen. Is it progress to rush headlong into upsetting the whole balance of nature, which is what I think we're beginning to do? You know, if you look at the latest figures on climate change and global warming, they're terrifying. Terrifying. Let alone the immense demands on resources that are being increasingly made by, you know, 1.3 billion people in China. And that's leaving aside India. How are we going to cope? How are we going to supply the, you know, the demand without thinking about redefining our economic models? I mean, what is the point of going on and saying, "This is the best one," without stopping to review it in light of what we're beginning to discover, that we're doing to the world around us? So, I'm not anti-progress. I'm just suggesting that a progress of everlasting growth may not be the ideal way of looking at it now. But now that we can make such huge impacts on the world around us -- we never were able to make impacts to that degree before, but now we can really seriously muck about with things -- all I am trying to say is that we should just learn from the things we've thrown away that can be the immense value as a means of survival.

KROFT: You're about to go to the United States. You have not been in 20 years. Did we do something to offend you 20 years ago that it's taken you that long to get back?

PRINCE CHARLES: I haven't been for 20 years officially.

KROFT: Oh, officially. You've been there since?

PRINCE CHARLES: Oh sure, I've been since. I can't remember. But the trouble is, there's an awful lot of other places to go, I suppose. You don't want to see me all the time. You'd get bored. (LAUGHS)

[Note: In recent years Prince Charles has been on various visits to the United States – attending, for example, the funeral of Ronald Reagan – but this is his first official tour of the United States in 20 years. Mr. Kroft and Prince Charles continue discussing the Prince's upcoming trip . . .]

KROFT: What do you hope to accomplish?

PRINCE CHARLES: I rather hope that, you know, I might be able to raise some of these issues there, because the United States is of enormous importance in the world. What happens in the States could affect everything in the world around us. So, that's one of the reasons why I think it's so important to talk about these issues and with others who also mind about these things. And also, you know, I have lots of friends in the United States, and I see so many people from there all the time, whether they're here or elsewhere in the world and we have so many—so many things in common in many ways.

KROFT: You're favorably disposed towards the U.S.?

PRINCE CHARLES: (LAUGHS) Absolutely, yes. But I think because the United States has such an incredible influence on world events, you know, I think some of these issues I've been talking about are, you know, are of immense importance. I don't know. People may disagree. But as again, the proof will be in the pudding. I happen to mind about, you know, my grandchildren and your grandchildren. Now, that's something that people pay lip service to.

The great thing about the United States, I may say so, is remembering what your red Indian population -- how they used to think about these things. The Sioux Indians, for instance, never did anything without thinking about the seventh unborn generation. See, these are things worth remembering. You may say it's old-fashioned. But by God, it's worth remembering.

KROFT: It seems like you have reached a certain point in your life where your children are grown, you've remarried. Your mother is approaching a significant birthday. It seems like your life is very stable and you seem very content in your job and your work.

PRINCE CHARLES: If you think that that's what it all appears, I am thrilled and delighted. (LAUGHS) And we'll see what, you know, the American people make of it when we come. But, you know, both my wife and I are looking forward to it very much indeed. You know, the American people are so friendly and jolly and interested in all sorts of things, and open to ideas, which is always enjoyable. There are lots of things that I've managed to take from the United States and bring back here, and try and, you know, shake people about.

I mean, I remember 30 years ago I came to the States and we found out about some of the environmental things being done even then, like extracting methane gas from landfill sites and turning the landfill site eventually into a golf course. And I said, "Come on," over here. "Why don't we look at, you know, these." Nothing was ever done.

So, there are lots of things that are going on in the States which are of real value. And I occasionally will do things here which might be of interest there. But I've got lots of things going here to help people in inner cities and goodness knows what else from really imaginative projects developed in the United States.

KROFT: Is there anything you're looking forward to doing there? Anything you're looking forward to taking the Duchess and showing -- anything that you remember from your last visit? Are you going to get a favorite coffee or a meal or . . .

PRINCE CHARLES: (LAUGHS) I shouldn't think so, no. I mean, the problem is that it's quite a long time. You know, these official visits are quite difficult to escape, you know, to go to places. Be nice to do it privately. But I have to wait for other occasions.

But hopefully back in California, because I remember going there when I was in the Navy, the Royal Navy. Again, 30 years ago. And my ship went to San Diego, and I remember spending time there and then going to San Francisco and places from there. It was great fun then, because you can imagine, it was easier for me at that point.

KROFT:Do you ever . . .

PRINCE CHARLES: Not quite so easy.

KROFT: . . . get to do anything privately?

PRINCE CHARLES: Yes. But it's not so easy nowadays. I can't. (LAUGHS) I'd love to. But, unfortunately, I seem to be, you know, people seem to know about it or invent it. (LAUGHS)