Pictures: Prince Charles at 60

Many men would, given the choice, spend their 60th birthdays putting their feet up, opening their presents and possibly enjoying a glass or two of champagne. Not the Prince of Wales. He chose to spend it hanging out with some unemployed youth in the farthest reaches of East London.

Knowing that, whatever he did, the media were guaranteed to be in attendance, he kicked off the day with a visit to a project from The Prince’s Trust, where he heard inspirational tales of disadvantaged young people who, thanks to the trust, have managed to turn their lives around.

The only trouble was that his birthday kept breaking through. So, on a morning that should have been dominated by talk of life chances and community projects, the Prince received a cake, a card, a birthday kiss from a stranger and an unwelcome reminder of the passing of the years.

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The latter came soon after his arrival at the Stroud Pavilion, a former bowling green pavilion in Beckton, that has been turned into a community centre with help from students on a Prince’s Trust course.

One of them, Ibrahim Mehmet, turned 20 yesterday, making him a round 40 years younger than the Prince. The two men exchanged birthday greetings, and then the Prince asked Mr Mehmet how old he was. He grimaced. “You’re still young. It is so bloody long ago I cannot remember what it was like,” he said.

The kiss was a bit better. It came as he was leaving the Beckton Community Centre, where the Prince launched The Prince’s Trust Youth Week, highlighting the good that young people offer society. “Prince Charles!” came a voice from the crowd. “May I give you a birthday kiss?”

A quick peck on the cheek, and Naiyer Qureshi had got what she wanted. “I cannot believe I just did that,” said Miss Qureshi, who would not give her age, but could be described as young enough to be the Prince’s daughter, but old enough to know better. “It cheered me up. He seems to be a really nice, caring, sensitive man who has had a bad press.”

As for the card and the cake, they came respectively from the Prince’s Trust students and The Sun; the cake was decorated with a royal bus pass.

As he was receiving his cake, the story that the Duchess of Cornwall gave him 60 presents, one for each year of his life, was being laid to rest. Ever since the claim was printed in a Sunday tabloid it has gained currency, to the extent that a spoof song was performed on the Radio 4 Today programme on the subject. It is, however, not true, according to Clarence House sources; the number of presents she gave him is in single figures.

The Queen’s gift — and it can be assumed that it was not the only one — was to allow a 41-gun salute to be fired in Hyde Park at noon by the cannon of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. A second, 62-gun, salute was fired an hour later by the Honourable Artillery Company at Gun Wharf by the Tower of London.

Later the Prince and Duchess attended a concert for children staged by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Opera House and organised by the Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts.

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