Prince Charles’ four days in Hong Kong: when the British royal visited the city in 1979
- The British heir to the throne’s 1979 visit to Hong Kong began on March 3 and spanned four days, ending at a toy-car factory in San Po Kong in Kowloon
- The Post’s March 7 report focused not on his official engagements but his hair, noting that it appeared he had ‘inherited at least one of his father’s traits’
“The first official visit to Hongkong by Prince Charles will begin on March 3,” reported the South China Morning Post on February 19, 1979. “He will be here for four days during which he will carry out various public engagements and visit the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles of which he is Colonel-in-Chief.
“He will be met at Kai Tak airport by the Governor Sir Murray MacLehose, and begin his public engagements on Sunday, March 4.”
When that Sunday arrived, the Post wrote that “British flags and crowds of fans were hard to find at Kai Tak airport yesterday [ …] But even if the public was there, the Prince would not have known.
“He was at the airport for only five minutes – in a specially restricted area far from the public where he met the Governor [ …] Looking fresh in a dark blue pin-striped suit, despite his 6,000 mile [9,660km] journey from Oxfordshire, Prince Charles was then whisked straight to the Governor’s Rolls-Royce, ready for the drive to Flagstaff House, the Governor’s temporary residence.”
On March 7, it was not Charles’ official engagements that led news of his visit, but the “heir’s hair”, as a headline read that day in the Post, referencing previous photos where “Britons realised the painful truth that the Prince had inherited at least one of his father’s traits”.