The Observer

Hello, it's Claudia here and you're listening to the slow newscast from The Observer.

This week, Royal Trouble.

When he was Prince of Wales, the king let it be known that he was in favour of a slimmed-down

monarchy. On state occasions, the Buckingham Palace balcony had become a bit crowded, with

dukes and duchesses who ordinary members of the public might struggle to name. Now, with Prince Harry in effective exile in California,

and Andrew disgraced and banished, that vision for a slimmed down monarchy is becoming a reality.

And it looks like that reality will continue through to the next king, because Prince William

is beginning to make it be heard what kind of monarch he'd

like to be. But how realistic is it? And are the Royals at a crisis point? My colleagues

Rachel Sylvester and Madeleine Parr have been investigating. The thing about people experiencing homelessness is they're very, very good at sussing very quickly whether someone's genuine and authentic.

During one of the COVID lockdowns, the Passage, a homeless shelter in London, set up a food hub to provide meals.

The operation was run by Passage staff, as well as a small army of volunteers, working to deliver

meals to homeless people they'd managed to temporarily house in hotels.

And during that four-week period, he came in three separate times, all masked up, but to help

with the volunteers we had preparing the food and on one occasion actually delivering the

food to one of the hotels, which even though he's masked up, gave a bit of a surprise

when they saw who the delivery boy was.

That delivery boy was the future king, Prince William.

Since his first visit to the passage, aged 11, hand in hand with his mother, Princess Diana,

William has been a regular visitor and volunteer.

Mick Clark, who runs the project, told me that a lot of the time he visits privately, without the press.

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