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Charles, Camilla seal it with a royal kiss : The Times of India
This is a story of a kiss. The one they call the `first royal kiss`. A kiss with the first flush of adolescent love.
This is a story of a kiss. The one they call the 'first royal kiss'. A kiss with the first flush of adolescent love.
But it is not 19-year-old Prince William who has got the British press and public excited. It is his father, Prince Charles, 53, who publicly saluted his long-time companion, Camilla Parker Bowles at a party on Tuesday night.
The sedate peck on the cheek, lasting just seconds and endlessly replayed through column inches and a thousand photographs, is seen as yet another step down the path to public acceptance of their 30-year-old relationship.
The British tabloids, always irreverent and easily titillated, embarked on a detailed analysis of how the public display of affection actually came about. According to one more restrained account, Parker-Bowles, who had invited her Prince to a charity gala she was hosting, was in a dilemma: To kiss or not to kiss.
Eventually, she settled for the familiar option, launching a thousand columns of purple prose on the couple's exact intentions as they become steadily bolder in public.
But royal watchers say Charles and Camilla, two middle-aged people who have loved each other for years, are avoiding the situation of star-crossed royal lovers elsewhere, notably in Kathmandu, who are unable to reconcile their love lives with duty and family responsibilities.
The royal kiss continues a three-year rehabilitation campaign for Charles and Camilla after their bad press during the Diana years and in the immediate aftermath of her death. In late 1998, Parker-Bowles, once reviled as the most hated woman in Britain because she apparently upstaged Diana, beloved People's Princess, in her husband's heart, hosted a birthday party for her Prince.
Just months later, the couple enjoyed a night out at the Ritz, one of London's most famous hotels, where photographers from around the world recorded the "royal coming out" for posterity.
The sedate peck on the cheek, lasting just seconds and endlessly replayed through column inches and a thousand photographs, is seen as yet another step down the path to public acceptance of their 30-year-old relationship.
The British tabloids, always irreverent and easily titillated, embarked on a detailed analysis of how the public display of affection actually came about. According to one more restrained account, Parker-Bowles, who had invited her Prince to a charity gala she was hosting, was in a dilemma: To kiss or not to kiss.
Eventually, she settled for the familiar option, launching a thousand columns of purple prose on the couple's exact intentions as they become steadily bolder in public.
But royal watchers say Charles and Camilla, two middle-aged people who have loved each other for years, are avoiding the situation of star-crossed royal lovers elsewhere, notably in Kathmandu, who are unable to reconcile their love lives with duty and family responsibilities.
The royal kiss continues a three-year rehabilitation campaign for Charles and Camilla after their bad press during the Diana years and in the immediate aftermath of her death. In late 1998, Parker-Bowles, once reviled as the most hated woman in Britain because she apparently upstaged Diana, beloved People's Princess, in her husband's heart, hosted a birthday party for her Prince.
Just months later, the couple enjoyed a night out at the Ritz, one of London's most famous hotels, where photographers from around the world recorded the "royal coming out" for posterity.