{"id":446080,"date":"2026-02-26T05:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446080\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T05:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:22:15","slug":"paddington-at-the-palace-queen-is-introduced-to-everyones-favourite-bear-as-she-hosts-reception-for-young-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446080\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddington at the Palace! Queen is introduced to everyone’s favourite bear as she hosts reception for young writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen Camilla<\/a>\u00a0was introduced to Paddington Bear during a reception for young writers at Windsor Castle today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everyone’s favourite bear sweetly curtsied before shaking hands with Camilla, 78, as she hosted the finals of the BBC<\/a>\u00a0500 Words competition this afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also shared a heartfelt moment with a young guest during the star-studded event attended by the judges,\u00a0finalists and celebrity readers for this year’s edition of the national writing prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Queen, who has supported the prize since 2015, also welcomed celebrities like Rose Ayling-Ellis<\/a>, The One Show stars, Roman Kemp and Alex Jones, and Sir Lenny Henry<\/a> to Windsor Castle<\/a> this afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Camilla opted for a black-and-white polka dot dress for the occasion, as she congratulated the 50 finalists chosen from a pool of over 45,000 submissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Camilla, like other senior royals<\/a>, is continuing her public duties after the unprecedented arrest of disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday, she joined King Charles<\/a>, Princess Anne<\/a>\u00a0and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in the largest gathering of royals since Andrew’s arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His Majesty handed out The Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Higher and Further Education St James’s Palace on Tuesday, February 24, after he pledged ‘my family and I will continue in our duty and service’ in a statement following his younger brother’s arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Queen <\/p>\n

Queen Camilla was introduced to Paddington Bear during a reception for young writers at Windsor Castle<\/p>\n

\"Camilla, <\/p>\n

Camilla, 78, also received a warm hug from one of the attendees as she hosted the judges, finalists and celebrity readers for this year’s edition of BBC 500 Words for emerging talent<\/p>\n

BBC 500 Words is the UK\u2019s most prestigious writing competition and has been supported by Queen Camilla for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

It encourages youngsters aged between five and 11 to write a short story from their own imagination.<\/p>\n

Last month, Camilla joined the panel of judges – chaired by Alex and Rose – to select 50 of the best entries out of 46,500 submissions from writers across the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of these finalists, six stories will be read out by celebrities at today’s reception, which was also attended by a slew of BBC stars, including Jodie Whittaker, Sara Cox, and Bradley Walsh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BBC 500 Words judge Frank Cottrell-Boyce previously said the competition is ‘a highlight of my calendar’ in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Every year I’m amazed at how funny, wise, ambitious and bonkers our children’s stories can be. And every year we judges have a massive fight about which story is the funniest, wisest, most ambitious and most bonkers,’ the acclaimed author said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The final will be televised on The One Show on March 6, World Book Day.<\/p>\n

The Prince of Wales also carried out a solo engagement today as Prince William, 43, visited the Francis Crick Institute in central London.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scientists left their labs to applaud Prince William, 43, as he arrived at the biomedical research centre to highlight British innovation in the field on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"Paddington <\/p>\n

Paddington Bear stopped by the Queen’s reception for the finalists of the BBC 500 Words competition, as he was joined by actress Marisha Wallace (centre)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The One Show star Alex Jones (left) making formal introductions\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Welsh broadcaster watches as Paddington Bear salutes Camilla\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Other <\/p>\n

Other guests included Jodie Whittaker (left), Sara Cox, and Bradley Walsh\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

Two Gladiators also attended the reception at Windsor Castle today\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Queen <\/p>\n

Queen Camilla shares a laugh with Sir Lenny Henry, one of the judges of this year’s edition of the literary prize for emerging talent\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Roman <\/p>\n

Roman Kemp and his co-presenter Alex Jones also joined the celebrity line-up for today’s reception\u00a0<\/p>\n

The heir to the British throne visited the centre to meet researchers investigating how the brain works.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week,\u00a0Camilla put on a brave face at a horse racing event near her childhood home in East Sussex, as the police investigation into Andrew for misconduct in public office continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is understood the former Duke of York was arrested in relation to allegations he passed sensitive information to convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein while acting as a trade envoy for the British government.<\/p>\n

King Charles issued an unprecedented statement confirming his ‘wholehearted support and co-operation’ with the investigation into Andrew just hours after he was detained – with Buckingham Palace understood not to have known the former Duke of York would be arrested.<\/p>\n

The statement said: ‘I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office.<\/p>\n

‘What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities. In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation.<\/p>\n

‘Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.’<\/p>\n

William and Kate are understood to support the King.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen Camilla\u00a0was introduced to Paddington Bear during a reception for young writers at Windsor Castle today.\u00a0 Everyone’s favourite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15859,243,97,96,59,87745,98,56,54,55,16545],"class_list":["post-446080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alex-jones","tag-bbc","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-rose-ayling-ellis","tag-royals","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-windsor-castle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}