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King Charles surprised onlookers in Northern Ireland on Thursday when he picked up a ukulele and began strumming along with a local music group. The impromptu performance during a visit to Ards Allotments in County Down fell during the third and final day of his trip to Northern Ireland with Queen Camilla this week.
Buckingham Palace shared a video of the moment to social media with the caption, “Growing friendship and connection.” The King picked up the stringed instrument after the Loughries Men’s Shed Ukulele Ensemble played for him at the community garden. In return, the King was also extended an invitation to the group’s next rehearsal.
The moment is actually less surprising taking into account King Charles’s long musical history. He took up the cello in his youth and continued playing at Cambridge, where he performed with the university orchestra. In an interview with BBC Radio in 2021, the then-Prince of Wales described his time playing in the cello section of the orchestra of Trinity College, Cambridge, admitting he wasn’t great, but that he loved the experience anyway. Sadly, he wasn’t able to pursue it longer after he went into the military.
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Then-Prince Charles playing cello in his dorm room at Cambridge University in 1967.
“When I joined the Navy, I found it wasn’t so easy to take a cello in a ship. It got abandoned for a bit, and I never managed to take it up again,” Charles said in the interview. “’You suddenly realize how incredibly talented people are—the really good ones, that is—when we struggle away ourselves…It anchors you and connects you. It’s a useful antidote to sitting in front of a screen everyday.”
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Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.