Bees in his crown: the curious interests of Prince Charles

The “hefting of sheep”

The Prince wrote long letters to Tony Blair about agriculture, raising the plight of hill farmers, beef producers and those affected by outbreaks of bovine TB.

Charles called for government support for traditional livestock practices like the “hefting of sheep”, sadly not a feat of strength but a grazing technique.

Read more: Prince Charles 'black spider' letters released

The Patagonian Toothfish

In 2004 Charles wrote to Defra minister Elliot Morley over international efforts to tackle illegal fishing.

He was particularly keen to see governments and NGOs come together to save the Patagonian Toothfish, a vicious-looking beast also known as an Antarctic Sea Bass.

The Prince feared there would be “little hope for the poor old albatross” if the trade in toothfish was not stamped out, as the rare sea birds get caught in the fishing gear used by pirates.

The Lynx helicopter

The Prince of Wales struck a serious note when he asked Tony Blair about the poor performance of Lynx aircraft in Iraq.

He got a detailed response from the then-Prime Minister admitting that Ministry of Defence was well aware of the limitations of the Lynx and were looking to replace it.

Freedom of Information

With crashing irony, the Prince made a quip about Labour’s Freedom of Information Act in another letter to Tony Blair.

He wrote: “It was very good to see you again the other day and, as usual, I much enjoyed the opportunity to talk about a number of issues. You kindly suggested that it would be helpful if I put them in writing – despite the Freedom of Information Act!”

After ten years of wrangling by the Guardian newspaper to get the Prince’s letters published under freedom of information law, here we all are.

Mr Blair later described the passing of the act as one of his greatest mistakes as prime minister.

Watch: Prince Charles asked: 'are you worried about these letters?'

Herbal medicine

Prince Charles is sometimes lampooned as a supporter of homeopathy – the alternative medicine dismissed as worthless by many doctors and scientists.

Homeopathy is not explicitly mentioned in the “black spider” letters but the Prince does bemoan the fact that an EU directive could hurt the UK’s herbal medicine sector.

Mr Blair agreed that the Brussels plans were “crazy”, adding: “We simply cannot have burdensome regulation here.”

Trendy modern teaching

Writing to the education secretary, Charles Clarke, in 2004, the Prince urges the importance of healthy school meals, a year before Jamie Oliver took up the cause.

But when it comes to the classroom, Prince Charles is something of a traditionalist.

He wrote: “My Summer Schools are also challenging the fashionable view that teachers should not impart bodies of knowledge, but should instead act as “facilitators” or “coaches”, a notion which I find difficult to understand, I must admit.”

A bit of a meat market

Prince Charles’s views on architecture and the preservation of historic buildings are well known.

His letters contain several pleas for the sensitive restoration of landmarks like Armagh Gaol in northern Ireland and Cherry Knowle hospital in Northumberland.

On the development of NHS sites, he urged the Department of Health: “I do pray that we could discuss these matters more fully before irrevocable decisions are taken.”

But there is no evidence in the letters of Charles influencing government building plans.

He did get a letter from Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell informing him of her decision to make some bits of London’s historic Smithfield meat market listed buildings.

She had to break the news to the Prince that the market’s “lavatory block” was not of “sufficient architectural and historic merit” to be preserved for future generations.

“Dishonest” badger lovers

In a strongly-worded intervention which is sure to annoy opponents of the badger cull, the heir to the throne urged Tony Blair to “look again” at a cull in 2005.

He wrote: “I, for one, cannot understand how the ‘badger lobby’ seem to mind not at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an over-population of badgers – to me, this is intellectually dishonest.”