Although King Charles now comes across as a wiser and optimistic man who remains positive even while being treated for cancer, he was not always like it.
He himself once admitted he was “not very good at thinking positive.”
He confessed that during a phone call with Camilla on the night of December 18, 1989, as revealed in Diana Vs Charles, a 1993 book by veteran royal journalist and author James Whitaker.
They were married to other people (Charles to Diana and Camilla to Andrew Parker Bowles) when the conversation took place.
Described by Whitaker as “a rare insight into the heart and mind of the future king."
During their bedtime telephonic conversation, which was leaked in 1992, Charles and Camilla discuss prospects of a meeting which according to Camilla was only possible if her then husband Andrew Parker Bowles was not around.
And it was possible only when the strike wouldn't end because Bowles, an army officer whose duty was to make sure ambulance operations remain unaffected despite the strike.
It lasted six months and cost more than 35 millions UK pounds. The police and army hurriedly had to work out a cover system that would provide the same kind of service, and though this was finally achieved, inevitably the public suffered.
When the then Prince of Wales asks Camilla whether they are going to meet on Wednesday night.
Camilla replies: Oh Certainly, Wednesday night. I'll be alone, um, Wednesday you know. the evening. Or Thursday. While you're rushing around doing things I'll be, you know, alone until tile it (she refers to her husband as It) reappears. And early Wednesday morning, I mean, he'll be leaving at half-past eight, quarter past eight. He won't be here Thursday, pray God. Um, that ambulance strike, it's terrible thing to say this. I suppose it won't have come to an end by Thursday."
Charles: It will have done.
Camilla: Well, I mean for everybody's sake it will have done, but I hope for our sakes it's still going on.
Charles: Why?
Camilla: Well, because if it stops he will come down here on Thursday night.
Charles: Oh, no.
Camilla: Yes, But I don't think it will stop. do you?
Charles: No neither do I. Just our luck.
Camilla: It would be our luck. I know.
Charles: Then it's bound to.
Camilla: No. It won't. You mustn't think like that. You must think positive.
Charles: I'm not very good at that.
The then Prince of Wales, Charles ,and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
Diana had blamed Camilla, often portrayed as staid and dowdy, for wrecking her marriage.
Charles and Camilla got married in 2005, and since then she has come to be recognised as a key member of the royal family, whose calming effect on her husband has helped him deal with his role, previously as the Prince of Wales and now as the king.