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Proud this wonderful Man is our king''On May 6, 1994, King Charles (then Prince of Wales) anonymously donated his entire annual income from the Duchy of Cornwall—approximately £4.2 million—to establish emergency housing for homeless veterans, refusing any public acknowledgment and only revealing the gift when a journalist discovered tax records years later, demonstrating that his compassion operated independently of reputation, that charity for him meant sacrifice without recognition, and this pattern of secret generosity has continued for three decades with palace insiders estimating he's quietly given away over £100 million to causes ranging from flood relief to music education for underprivileged children. What distinguishes Charles's lifestyle is his obsessive documentation of natural phenomena—he's maintained phenological records at Highgrove since 1980, noting the exact date of first snowdrops, when swallows arrive, when specific trees leaf out, creating a 45-year dataset that climate scientists now use to track warming patterns, essentially conducting rigorous citizen science because he understood that knowing your land meant observing it daily with the attention most people reserve for human relationships, not environmental abstractions. His spiritual practice defies easy categorization—he begins each day with passages from the Bhagavad Gita, incorporates Sufi breathing techniques learned in Turkey, studies Christian mysticism with Benedictine monks, and practices Shinto-inspired gratitude rituals before meals, not from dilettante spiritual tourism but from genuine conviction that all wisdom traditions point toward the same ecological and ethical truths, that dogmatic allegiance to single religions creates the very divisions destroying human cooperation. Charles's approach to wealth contradicts aristocratic norms—he's worn the same Savile Row overcoat since 1971, has shoes resoled rather than replaced sometimes a dozen times, drives a 38-year-old Land Rover around Highgrove because "it still works perfectly," and famously uses every millimeter of toothpaste by cutting tubes open, habits that courtiers found embarrassingly frugal until they recognized these weren't eccentricities but expressions of a worldview where waste equals moral failure, where consuming beyond necessity betrays both environmental responsibility and respect for craftspeople whose work deserves longevity. Perhaps most remarkably, Charles has maintained the same small circle of close friends since Cambridge in the 1960s—writers, philosophers, farmers, artists—choosing depth over breadth in relationships just as he does with everything else, proving that a examined life requires consistency across decades, that authentic living means making choices and inhabiting them fully rather than chasing novelty, validation, or the exhausting performance of perpetual reinvention that modernity mistakes for growth.''![]()
#AnonymousPhilanthropy #CitizenScience #InterfaithPractice #ConsciousConsumption #fblifestyle
With The Seven Dias Mystery now on @netflixuk we ask do you prefer the book or TV series? #agathachristie #bookortv #bookshop #books #readmore
Astley Book Farm open Tuesday - Sunday 10-4. Come and find your next read. 100,000 books covering all genres. Also see our online eBay shop - link in bio #astleybookfarm #lovereading #readmore #indiebookshop #books
Unfortunately we have to close Thursday 15th January due to essential national grid works. While you can’t visit the shop please visit our EBay shop.![]()
Open again Friday 10-4 #bookshop #closedthursday #ebayshop #indiebookshop #lovebooks
Due to the poor weather and driving conditions we have made the decision to close the shop today, Friday 9th January. Sorry for any inconvenience #snow #shopclosed #astleybookfarm #bookshop #snowday
