I found myself at dusk in the bewitching Roman city of Jerash with H.M. Queen Rania of Jordan one year, and scrambling with hardened paparazzi to get an image of the Princess of Wales in a tiny Nepalese clinic in the foothills of the Himalayas another.

Cornwall, peopled mainly by Celts, but with an infusion of English blood, stands and always has stood apart from the rest of England, much, but in a less degree, as has Wales.

In my day England, Scotland, Wales had 80 drama schools. There are none left. So there's no training, no discipline.

I was born in Cairns, Queensland. Then my parents and I moved to Sydney. We moved to New Wales. We moved around Australia. I was just really close to my parents, and actually, we moved around a lot when I was very young. I think it played a big part in making me the shy teenager that I was.

I'm one of five kids and we lived on a massive farm in New South Wales with my mum and dad.

Do you seriously expect me to be the first Prince of Wales in history not to have a mistress?

Nothing escapes the vigilance of the New South Wales police; their reputation is known the world over.

You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the country or the empire, which, as Prince of Wales and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve.

Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe.

My mother's family is Christian: her father was a Baptist lay preacher, and her brother, in a leap of Anglican upward mobility, became a vicar in the Church of Wales. But my mother converted to Islam on marrying my father. She was not obliged to; Muslim men are free to marry ahl al-kitab, or people of the Book - among them, Jews and Christians.

In this eventful period the colony of New South Wales is already far advanced.

Each section of the British Isles has its own way of laughing, except Wales, which doesn't.

The moment seemed right to me for a full and, if possible, authoritative portrait of the life and character of the Prince of Wales.

I grew up in a small, strictly-Catholic fishing village on the coast of Wales. The people there have a different attitude to life than those in Hollywood - people stick together more.

We usually have a beautiful, sparkling Christmas tree and my dad reads us 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' in front of the fire and it's all very cozy. Then we pack up and head to meet my extended family, where we live out our yearly tradition of everyone gifting everyone underwear in their stockings.

I worked at the Steel Company Of Wales when I was 17. My job was to supply tools to the guys working the blast furnaces.

I'll move back to Wales if and when I have children. I want them to speak the language I speak, but I love living in London. It's my favourite city in the whole world. I love it because it's not England, it's London.

I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

I haven't become an American! Having a house in LA is just where the house is. It's just a convenience thing living there. I carry Wales around inside me. I'd consider moving back there one day. I never really left.

To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but, with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.