King Charles gets his hands dirty on litter clean up as he hears of traumatic rescue

King Charles heard how RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) crew on the South Coast made a "traumatic" rescue to save the lives of migrants crossing the channel.

It comes as President Macron and Sir Keir Starmer held a summit to discuss how to tackle migrant crossings from France to the UK shores after the French State Visit earlier this week.

During an away day to Deal in Kent, Charles visited the Walmer lifeboat station where he met Andrew Holland, Victoria Ward, Dan Sinclair and James Foster. The four were awarded with the Thanks of the Institution award by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

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Sinclair told the King: "Myself and three crew members saved five lives from a sinking boat in the channel ten miles off shore on a cold winter's morning in 2022. It was quite a traumatic call-out. The boat started taking on water and started sinking in front of our eyes.

"There were 40 on board. Luckily we pulled five of them out of the water, the other 35 were pulled out by UK border force."

When the King asked about the vessel they were travelling in, Sinclair said: "It was in a small dinghy." Charles appeared to suggest that they were not particularly hardy to which Sinclair replied: "They're not very seaworthy, no." The rescue was previously featured on the BBC series Saving Lives at Sea.

Afterwards, Charles, 76, headed to the pebble beach in Deal, greeting lifeboat staff and receiving a cheer as the national anthem played.

In an impromptu walkabout, he asked the crowd "have you all been standing here boiling for hours?"

Speaking to staff as they simulated a "shout" alert, he told them they were "incredible" before joining a litter pick on the beach.

The King told RAF cadets who had joined the clean up: "Do you all do it regularly or have they just dragged you out today?" He was told: "We'd like to do it more regularly."

In a long walkabout along the sea front he met members of the public including a bare chested man who admitted to the King: “I’ve come a little under-dressed.”

Charles asked the crowd who had been waiting for hours in the heat: "You haven’t all died of sunstroke have you?"

Earlier, the King, wearing the pin badge of the cinque ports, arrived at Walmer Castle by helicopter and was introduced to Lady Colgrain, Lord Lieutenant of Kent, and the castle’s current Lord Warden, Sir George Zambellas, former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff.

Dr Kathryn Bedford, English Heritage’s curator in the east and southeast, gave the King a tour of the castle, which was built as a device port by Henry VIII between 1539-40 to protect English from possible invasion by Catholic Europe.

At the state banquet with President Macron on Tuesday, Charles used his speech to say that “no fortress can protect us” as the challenges facing countries today “know no borders”.

Amid conversations between Macron and Sir Keir Starmer about the issue of migrants crossing the channel, Sir George said that the “pressure on coastal towns on the south coast” was a “universal issue”.

Former Lord Wardens of the castle include George V, Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother who held the position from 1978 until her death in 2002.

During her time as warden, Queen Elizabeth had living accommodation inside the castle where she spent weekends holding events. Today, the castle is undergoing a multi-million-pound restoration project to restore the roof.

When asked how conservation work was going, Neil McCollum, regional lead for English Heritage, told the King it was “endless, there’s always something that needs doing”.

Charles also spent time talking to mayors of the different port towns.

The King made a Barry Humpries joke and recalled his childhood steam train rides as he visited a castle that served as a weekend retreat for his late grandmother.

In the Queen Mother garden at Walmer Castle in Kent, designed for Queen Elizabeth’s 95th birthday, the King met mayors of the 14 coastal cinque ports. He said: “I remember as a child going on the Romney, Hythe and Dimchurch Railway.”

When he was told it was still running Charles said “Hurray!” He went on to say that he recalled “standing on the bridge watching the golden arrow [another railway line] passing underneath in the olden days, in the 50s.”

When he was passed a bunch of Dahlias by a representative of Hythe which caused Charles to remark that it reminded him of “Barry Humphries and his Gladdies”, referring to the late Australian comedian’s jokes about dahlias.

In a meeting with primary school-age children who are carers, the King was asked what his favourite dogs and flowers were, revealing they were Jack Russells and "Schnauzers, the ones with the moustaches”.

Chatting animatedly to the children, the monarch also revealed that delphiniums were his favourite flowers.