Queen Camilla has made a hilarious confession as she hosted an event close to her heart at Buckingham Palace. The 77-year-old met each winner during the BBC 500 Words awards ceremony, which was filmed for a special episode of The One Show today – which marks World Book Day.
Asked if she still finds time to read, the Queen replied: “I do when I have a holiday”. In a candid and hilarious confession, she added: “I do try occasionally to read at night but I read two pages and fall asleep and have to start again.” The ceremony celebrated the achievements of six winners from two age categories – five to seven and eight to 11. Recognition was given to gold, silver, and bronze recipients in each group.
The Queen then presented medals to the winners before they were escorted back to their seats by Gladiators Nitro, whose real name is Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, and Fire, whose real name is Montell Douglas.
The final ended with Jones and Fletcher singing McFly’s All About You, before the guests were invited to a reception.
Six illustrators – Momoko Abe, Dapo Adeola, Rob Biddulph, Yasmeen Ismail, Lydia Monks and Nigel Parkinson – were commissioned to illustrate the winning stories on display at the reception after the final.
Camilla is known to be an avid reader – as well as patron of a number of literary organisations and has been supporting the children’s writing competition since 2015.
Since it was launched in 2011 by Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, the competition has received more than one million stories from children in the UK.
