Prince Charles will miss 'remarkable, wonderful' Queen Mother

3.00pm

LONDON - To Prince Charles, his adored grandmother was "one of the most remarkable and wonderful people in the world".

For the heir to the British throne, the Queen Mother acted as a rock of reliability to whom he constantly turned for comfort and guidance.

Her death at 3.15am (NZT) today robs the 53-year-old king-in-waiting of both a mentor and mother figure.

The Prince, and his two sons Prince William and Prince Harry, were tonight due to return early from a skiing holiday in the Swiss resort of Klosters.

A report from the British Press Association said the Queen had given special permission for the heir to the throne and his eldest son, 19, to fly on the same plane, which is normally forbidden under royal protocol.

The three princes were told of the Queen Mother's death at the end of a day's skiing. The Queen telephoned her son about 15 minutes after the 101-year-old passed away in her sleep.

The last time the Prince saw his grandmother was Thursday. He had stopped by Windsor to see her before leaving for Switzerland.

Prince Charles is said to be "completely devastated" at the loss of his grandmother.

"The Prince of Wales was extremely close to his grandmother and will miss her terribly," a spokeswoman at St James's Palace said today.

"He is extremely sad and upset, as are the boys," she said.

It was the Queen Mother who offered a vital, if tiny, shoulder to cry on for Charles -- from his lonely childhood at a boarding school he loathed to the fairytale marriage to Princess Diana that crumbled in acrimony.

In New Zealand in 1994, the Prince told kaumatua gathered at Turangawaewae Marae, the home of the Maori Queen, that his grandmother was "one of the most remarkable and wonderful people in the world".

"She is 93, nearly 94, and completely indefatigable and unstoppable," he said.

"She is a great example of that remarkable generation that grew up at the turn of the century and someone who I think is one of the most remarkable and wonderful people in the world."

The Queen Mother gave Charles a lifetime of loyal support.

She taught him to fish, one of his favourite hobbies. She gave him a taste for classical music. Both shared a passion for the highlands of Scotland -- and a quick, irreverent wit.

In a family ever reluctant to bear its soul, Charles wrote movingly about his grandmother in the foreword to a book about her: "Ever since I can remember, my grandmother has been the most wonderful example of fun, laughter, warmth, infinite security and, above all, exquisite taste," he said.

"For me, she has always been one of those extraordinarily rare people whose touch can turn everything to gold, whether it be putting people at their ease, turning something dull into something amusing, bringing happiness and comfort to people by her presence or making any house she lives in a unique haven of cosiness and character."

He proudly accompanied the Queen Mother to her 100th birthday celebrations in St Paul's Cathedral.

It was him who rushed to her side when Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother's younger daughter, died last month.

Royal biographer Penny Junor, writing about the grieving prince in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, concluded: "Theirs was a very special relationship forged when Charles was just a small boy. His enthusiasm for seeing her, being with her and imparting all his news to her never diminished right up to the end.

"It will be a poorer world for him without her."

- REUTERS and HERALD STAFF

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