The Queen has spoken of the “joy” reading can give to children as she hosted an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of a leading UK book charity.
The reception marking Book Aid International’s anniversary at St James’s Palace in London was attended by some 100 guests, including the charity’s president Nigel Newton and Lady Caroline Simmonds, the daughter of its founder.
Camilla has been patron of the charity since 2022 and set up her own online book club during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
Book Aid International has sent more than 37 million books to schools, libraries, prisons and refugee camps around the world since its founding in 1954.
In an impromptu speech made after she had spoken individually to guests, Camilla told of the “very, very big difference” being made to people’s lives by the accessibility of books.
She said: “I wasn’t actually expecting to speak this evening.
“There’s not a lot more I can say, except to say a huge thank you to all of you who support Book Aid.
“I have visited quite a lot of countries on my travels and I have been to libraries which have been recipients of Book Aid, and I have just seen the joy on the children’s faces when they receive these books.
“And if we can keep on doing this all over the world, we’re going to make a very, very big difference to people reading books, children getting access to books – and it’s really thanks to Book Aid and all of you here who have made this possible.
“So thank you very much indeed.”
The charity was founded in 1954 by the Countess of Ranfurly as a library for local children in the Bahamas after she visited the island nation with her husband, who was its governor, and was “shocked” at the lack of reading material available.
This book scheme was extended to the Commonwealth from 1956 as the Ranfurly Library Service and was renamed Book Aid International in 1994.
Lord Boateng, vice patron of Book Aid International, said access to Lady Ranfurly’s library had “changed my life”.
“Book Aid International, then the Countess Ranfurly’s Library Trust, changed my life,” he told attendees.
“I was a little boy growing up in the Gold Coast, which became Ghana, and Book Aid International furnished the books and trained the librarians for the first dedicated children’s library in sub-Saharan Africa.
“I went to that library as a six, seven year-old. And it did change my life.”
The Labour peer said the books “underpinned aspiration” and gave children a “sense of the possibilities” available to them.
Prince Philip, as Duke of Edinburgh, had been Book Aid International’s royal patron from 1966 until his death in 2021.
Poet and novelist Sir Ben Okri, who was invited to the reception as a key supporter of the charity, said books helped “feed people’s minds, feed their spirits, encourage them, open up possibilities, deepen their thinking and release them from stress and fear”.
He told the PA news agency: “The Queen is one of the great evangelists of the power of books and power of reading.
“And it’s a very special thing because it’s not normally a very glamorous area – books are very private things, you read them all by yourself.
“And to have the Queen champion what reading can do is absolutely astonishing and invaluable for our age.”
Other guests invited to the hour-long event included broadcaster David Dimbleby, actor Neil Pearson, author Ken Follet and publisher Sigrid Rausing.
Book Aid International’s Generation Reader campaign, launched in 2023, aims to reach 10 million children across Africa by 2030.
The charity is also supporting libraries in Ukraine, with some 25,000 books already having been donated by publishers.
Camilla’s own book club has since become The Queen’s Reading Room, a charity which provides educational content around literature and hosts literary festivals, events and a podcast featuring authors and celebrity guests.