The bells of St George’s Cathedral in Perth began ringing and the crowd straightened up. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, who attended the service at the heritage-listed Anglican cathedral on the last day of their Australian tour, would be emerging soon.
Inner-city Perth is always quiet on a Sunday morning, and the royal visit had not altered that.
This Sunday, a number of people paused their morning ambulations to remark on the number of police loitering at the edges of St George’s Cathedral. No one, except for the watching media, seemed aware Charles and Camilla were inside.
The crowd grew organically. A few people gathered on the footpath, having determined the presence of their royal highness by the traditional method of wandering up to the nearest copper and asking, “Who are you blokes here for, then?”
A bunch of spectators will always attract more and soon the crowd grew to more than 60. They lined the bollards, borrowed rather last-minute by a number of officials, who were seen ducking back from the City of Perth council offices across the road with extra silk rope in hand. The very old, and a few very young, waited on the cathedral green under the watchful eye of an extremely sunburned member of the secret service for their royal highnesses to emerge.
Some, like friends Camille Haymes and Leah Hirt, were attracted by the crowd, and figured there must be a royal behind it. “It’s these things,” Haymes said, gesturing at the bollards. “People just gather.”
Others put in more planning. Carol Blacklaw has had close encounters with most of the royal family through her years working at Government House in Perth. But she has retired now, and there’s one more face she needs to see to complete the set.
“I had to come here to see Camilla,” Blacklaw told Guardian Australia.
“They all look so different in the flesh. When I first saw the Queen, she was … just remarkable. And when I saw Diana I was blown away. She was so beautiful.”
At length the couple emerged and began to wend their way down the two-tiered queue of people waiting to shake a royal hand. At least, one of them did. Camilla, having an appointment to visit the State Library of Western Australia on the other side of the city, ducked off in a flash of periwinkle blue. Blacklaw let off a heartfelt groan and consulted her royal tour schedule. The duchess would have to be spotted another time.
Charles made his way down the line, shaking hands in the 30C heat. “How are you liking the weather, your highness?” one punter asked. “Well, it is a bit hot,” came the reply.
He paused at a group of South African veterans whose red berets marked them as part of the paratroop regiment, closely affiliated to the British paratroopers of which Charles is a patron.
One veteran, Philip Niman, wearing the black beret of the South African infantry, held the royal attention with a discussion of his grandfather’s medals, awarded for service in Flanders in the first world war.
“[I told him] that I had recently taken a group of 60 students from the school I teach at to the battlefields,” Niman told Guardian Australia. “He was very interested in it.”
David Lancaster had another reason for wanting to see the prince.
“Many years ago, about 20 years ago, I read in the newspaper that when Prince Charles travels incognito he uses the name David Lancaster, which is my name,” Lancaster said, noting that now he had seen the man in the flesh he was “absolutely” happy for him to continue using his name.
“He looked younger than I thought he would,” he said, then added, slightly disapprovingly, “Sometimes the media doesn’t show the best view of someone, does it?”
After greeting the crowd, his royal highness climbed into a waiting car which apparently drove him around the block to return to the same spot, where he disembarked again to officially open the newly restored state treasury building.
He then took a tour of the WA Seed Technology Centre in Kings Park to talk science and conservation with postgraduate students before being rejoined by the duchess for a walk through Kings Park, from the transplanted boab tree to the flame of remembrance where a crowd of more than 500 gathered.
“It’s like Santa Claus,” one man remarked. “Everyone is lining up to get a photo with Charles.”
