Queen Camilla and her son Tom
Of course, we all know Queen Camilla. In the early 1970s, Charles and Camilla were madly in love with each other, any royalty watcher could tell. As we now know, their story turned out quite differently. According to palace sources, the British court was not pleased with Camilla as a match for a future king. Moreover, Prince Commitment Fear did not want to get married before he was thirty, but Camilla preferred to tie the knot now rather than later.
In addition, there was the handsome officer Andrew Parker-Bowles. A good friend of Charles and ex of Princess Anne (yes, that one), who had an on-again, off-again relationship with Camilla since the sixties. He married Camilla in 1973, followed by the marriage of Charles and Diana in 1977. Just as good friends seemed to be the motto. Several royals attended the wedding between Camilla and Andrew, and Camilla in turn attended Charles and Diana’s wedding with her son.
The marriage between Andrew and Camilla also seems to have had a big push from their parents. Fathers Derek Parker Bowles and Bruce Shand secretly published an announcement of their engagement in The Times, according to historian Sally Bedell Smith. So Andrew had to propose. So, together with Andrew, Camilla had two children. In December 1974, Tom was the first offspring of the two aristocrats. His sister Laura followed in January 1978. Both kids now largely stay out of the spotlights, so the two are not very well known to the general public.
So first of all there is Tom. Of Charles’s two stepchildren, he is the one who is the most in the spotlight. Tom is very active in the culinary world as a writer and reviewer. He also makes the necessary appearances in British cooking shows in this role. For example, he has presented the Market Kitchen program for years, and he regularly appears as a jury member in the BBC program MasterChef. Now and then we also see Tom side by side with his mother. In July 2022, for example, he appeared alongside his mother and politician/historian/know-it-all Gyles Brandreth at a celebratory luncheon in honor of Camilla’s 75th birthday.