King Charles took to the DJ decks with Sir Idris Elba at a Buckingham Palace garden party marking the 50th anniversary of The King’s Trust youth charity. Guests danced through the downpour clutching umbrellas as the king moved among young people and alumni supported by the organisation.
Charles spent more than an hour greeting about 50 young people and alumni before heading over to the DJ setup, where he approached Christian St Louis and Elba near the equipment. The 22-year-old from Middleton in Greater Manchester had taken a DJing course through the Trust and performed at the party, giving the celebration a brisk, youthful edge that matched its purpose.
The garden party was staged for the charity that was founded in 1976 and has spent five decades working with young people. Elba, who is an alumnus of The King’s Trust, was among the celebrity ambassadors at the event, alongside Ant and Dec, Holly Willoughby, Dame Helen Mirren and Damian Lewis. Charles arrived on the palace steps in a grey suit, blue tie and red King’s Trust pin, then descended after the band played the national anthem.
Before he left the DJ area, Elba said the king had joined him earlier that morning at the National Youth Music Theatre and that the conversation had taken him back to his own early experiences there. Elba said Charles had told him he was going to DJ at the party and did, adding that he simply pressed play before moving on. He also said the king did not linger at the booth.
For some of the young people at the palace, the day was less about spectacle than survival and second chances. Darnell Allman-Smith said he got the final place on the charity’s Making it in Media course while going through a depressive episode. He said the two-week course helped him get over depression and social anxiety, and helped him make friends again.
Allman-Smith described the place on the course as a gift when he was not sure he was ready for it, saying staff held it open while he reconsidered. He said the trust’s support over those two weeks changed his life and gave him the strength and ambition to do better for himself and pass that courage on to others. At a party built around celebration, that was the clearest measure of what The King’s Trust is meant to do: turn a royal anniversary into a room full of people with something concrete to show for it.
