King Charles laughs at his younger self's antics: 'I thought it'd be fun'

King Charles is looking back to one of his most daring adventures as a 26-year-old.

In an upcoming ITV documentary, the monarch, now 77, looks back at his historic 10-day trip to the Arctic in 1975, a trip that shaped his lifelong passion for the environment. Environmentalist Steve Backshall recently retraced The King’s steps, looking at the impact of climate change 50 years on.

A short teaser shared by the royal family’s official Instagram page showed His Majesty, joined by Backshall at the Palace, looking at clips and pictures from the original 1975 expedition, including the most iconic moment: Charles emerging from a deep dive inexplicably wearing a bowler hat over his diving suit.

“I thought it would be rather fun coming back up with the hat on,” he told Backshall, adding, “I thought [it was] a chance to fool around.”

Another moment showed Charles, then the Prince of Wales, emerging from his tent in his suit that he had blown up with air. “I blew the thing up, see how far it would go,” he recalled as both Backshall and the King burst into laughter.

Elsewhere in the documentary, the cancer-stricken King makes a heartbreaking comment about his current health. “Thank God I was younger in those days,” he said about his expedition. “I could never have survived it now,” he added with a chuckle.

During the 10-day expedition, Charles interacted with and learned from the Inuits — the indigenous people of the Arctic — about the local culture, how to coexist with nature, their relationship with their sled dogs, and more.

But the bowler hat moment stuck out for its sheer absurdity. Charles’ diving partner was Dr. Joe MacInnis, a Canadian physician, author, and diver. According to his 2023 recounting of the historic dive, MacInnis revealed that it was he who planted the bowler hat on the seabed during a previous dive. When he retrieved it and put it on, Charles was amused.

“He loved it and he took the bowler hat… and then just left gracefully, a trail of bubbles behind him, headed up towards the dive-hole,” MacInnis wrote.