Beastly!: Charles and Camilla attend charity ball

Real animal!
Charles and Camilla honor charity ball

06/29/2023, 11:45 am

King Charles and Queen Camilla wore elephant masks at a charity event. The reason for attending the event was also a memorial to Camilla’s deceased brother.

With elephant masks in hand, King Charles III. and Queen Camilla shown at a conservation charity ball. According to the British newspaper Daily Mail, the royal couple appeared in high spirits at the celebration at Lancaster House in London. According to the report, the 20th anniversary of the animal welfare organization “Elephant Family” was celebrated there. It was founded in 2003 by Queen Camilla’s late brother, Mark Shand.

At this year’s event, the King and Queen, who wore a bespoke light blue Anna Valentine dress with matching trousers, presented the animal rights organization with two awards: the Mark Shand Award and the Tara Award, which recognize contributions to the protection of Asia’s wildlife serve.

According to the Daily Mail, the king said in front of around 300 guests at the event: “Both my wife and I are very proud to be able to present these two awards, especially since today is Mark Shand’s birthday.” The monarch added: “And he would have been so thrilled to know that ‘Elephant Family’ could celebrate its 20th anniversary.”

Celebrities such as actress Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, “Succession” star Matthew Macfadyen and designer Christian Louboutin attended the event, which was organized jointly by “Elephant Family” and the “British Asian Trust”.

Mark Shand was only 62

Camilla’s brother Mark Shand was passionate about protecting elephants and Asian wildlife. The King and Queen have also been supporters of Elephant Family for a long time, including visiting the charity’s projects when they travel abroad.

Mark Shand was a British author and conservationist. Among other things, he appeared in BBC documentaries, which were mainly about the survival of elephants. His book “Travels on My Elephant” became a bestseller.

In April 2014, Shand flew to New York to attend a fundraiser for Elephant Family. There he is said to have fallen in front of his hotel later in the evening and suffered a serious head injury. He was taken to a hospital, but later died there as a result of the injury. Mark Shand was 62 years old. He is survived by a daughter, born in 1995, whose mother Shand divorced in 2010.