Event brings you a colourful insight into the life of a prince with photos of Charles in his mother’s arms, on tour around the world and sharing tender moments with his wife Camilla
Princess Anne holds a bunch of daffodils as Prince Charles stands guard over a plant in 1954
The eight-month-old Prince makes an early play for the Crown Jewels as Royal mother and son share a tender moment in the garden of Windlesham Moor, Surrey, in July 1949, where the family lived for two years as they waited for a major refurbishment of Clarence House to be finished
Elizabeth counts her blessings as a parent while the baby Prince counts the balls on his abacus in an outdoor playpen in the grounds of the rented Windlesham Moor, a five-bedroom country house in Sunningdale with two guest rooms combined to make a nursery
Charles reaches for his rabbit which, along with a teddy, some yellow ducks, a submarine and an elephant on wheels called Jumbo, were his favourite first toys. The photo-shoot on these pages was Charles’s first public appearance since his christening in December 1948
Bundled up against the chill for his first visit to Twickenham, the great cathedral of English rugby, for the annual Army versus Navy match in 1955. It was a family outing with his parents, and the Navy won 8-3
Toddler Charles in 1950, clutching his best-loved teddy as he leaves Clarence House with his nurse in a car. Crowds outside awaited news of the birth of his sister Anne
The Queen is a passionate photographer who has travelled with a camera in her handbag throughout her reign. She’s seen here teaching her son some early skills in an image snapped by her midwife, Sister Helen Rowe, who was present for the birth of all the Queen’s children
Charles, aged five-and-a-half, on an official visit to Gibraltar in May 1954, feeding the rock’s famous Barbary apes. Legendary broadcaster Alan Whicker, then a Royal correspondent covering the trip, later revealed: ‘Charles hated them – and so did I’
Never too young to start: Charles aged four saluting during the 1953 Trooping the Colour, his first, while George, on the eve of his third birthday does the same in 2016
Pathe News footage of the 1956 Royal Windsor Horse Show captures the Queen explaining the rules of showjumping to Charles before heading off to present the prizes
The 17-year-old Charles alongside Princess Anne, 14, arriving in Kingston, Jamaica ahead of the 1966 Commonwealth Games. He would play his first ever public polo match on that trip, sporting a regal Number 1 shirt, to the delight of the West Indian crowds
Charles was 11 when his brother Andrew arrived in 1960. He was allowed out of Cheam School for the occasion and sneaked into Buckingham Palace by a side door to be met by a delighted Prince Philip and Princess Anne. He is pictured here a month later, proudly looking into the new baby’s cradle. Prince Edward would complete the family in 1964
Charles, 15, at Euston station with one of his mother’s corgis on his way to holiday in Balmoral, Scotland, 1963
Charles and Anne live the Caribbean dream with Prince Philip as they snatch some family time from their official Royal tour of Jamaica in 1966
Charles was taught to drive by his mother and Metropolitan Police instructors, and is seen here grimacing as he takes the wheel for the first time since passing his test in April 1967
A year earlier and Charles is pictured pulling on a swim hat presented to him during a lifesaving demonstration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia
It’s an ordinary picture of a Cambridge student – feet up, coffee to hand – in his college rooms, but Charles was the first heir to the throne to get a degree. He read anthropology, archaeology and history at Trinity, graduating with a 2:2 in June 1970
A relaxed Charles, 22, greets his seven-year-old cousin Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones with a huge bear hug on the moors near Balmoral during the Royal Family’s annual summer break in 1971. Their relationship is as close as ever; they still sketch and paint together at Balmoral, and she is godmother to Prince Harry
The epitome of Seventies chic, Charles and Anne wear fur-lined Eskimo parkas on a 1970 tour of Canada. Despite the fun image, this was a landmark event for Charles, 21. He kicked the trip off alone in Ottawa before his parents and sister arrived, firmly positioning him as a future head of the Commonwealth
Prince Harry, aged two-and-three quarters, shares a secret with his father at Cirencester Polo Club in Gloucestershire, 1987. In their teens both he and William would join Charles on the polo pitch, calling themselves Team Highgrove
Charles, fit but not flying, loses with good grace in the dads’ race during Prince William’s sports day at Wetherby prep school, June 1989. Three years later, he dodged it altogether, citing Royal duties as a way of avoiding a humiliating rerun
Not the War of the Waleses, just Diana having a smashing time with a prop at Pinewood Studios
The king of country pursuits, Charles looks far more at home in his tweed suit and trilby watching the 1982 Grand National at Aintree than Princess Diana, seven months pregnant with Prince William, who had climbed on to a Range Rover bonnet to get a better view
Charles’s Royal protection officer stays out of harm’s way – for once – as he ducks and covers his ears while Harry, aged 11, takes aim at a pheasant. Harry inherited his father’s love of rural pursuits, but his days as a keen shot on Royal estates such as Sandringham, pictured here, may be over. The Duchess of Sussex, an animal-rights campaigner, doesn’t approve of the sport
The loving look that says: ‘We got there in the end dear!’
The Prince stays slim by eating just one main meal a day. It keeps him in the kind of shape he showed here windsurfing at Cowes in 1980
Stripping after a polo match in 1975, the Prince shows why he was so eligible…
He’s 13 years older in 1988 but he’s just as buff, with a slim waist, neat six-pack and muscular shoulders. Today Charles can still button up the double breasted herringbone tweed winter coat made for him by Anderson & Sheppard in 1987
He has always loved being in and on the water. He’s pictured aged 15 taking a dip in the Aegean Sea during a visit to Greece for the wedding of King Constantine of Greece, a cousin of his father the Duke of Edinburgh
Charles waterskiing on a dining chair perched on a table top at Windsor’s Sunninghill Park. The challenge had been set by his uncle, Lord Snowdon, a notable inventor
Surf’s up for Prince Charles on Bondi Beach, Australia, 1981
Looking to the past and the future, the monarch and her heir at the Order of Bath service, Westminster Abbey, 2014. This was the year the Queen asked Charles to take her place at the ceremony for new members of the Order, fearing she would not make the steep stairs in The Lady Chapel of King Henry VII in her cumbersome robe and heavy train