Roya family celebrates as Queen Camilla makes surprise visit to Sussex

Queen Camilla turned cameras as she made a surprise appearance at the opening session of this year's Charleston Festival, one of the UK's longest-running literature festivals, in East Sussex on Thursday.

The royal family's social media accounts shared adorable photos of the Queen from the event called the 'Power of Reading', which brings together artists and writers to engage with art and ideas.

The Queen, patron of the Charleston Trust, turned heads as she looked elegant in a striking green outfit.

The photos were captioned: "Celebrating the power of books in East Sussex!

"The Queen has surprised guests at the opening session of Charleston Festival 2024, as she joined @josephcoelhoauthor on stage for a conversation about the power of reading and the books they loved as children."

It added: "Later, at Lamb House, once home to novelists Henry James, Rumer Godden and E. F. Benson, The Queen joined a Garden Party with organisations in celebration of Rye’s renowned literary history.

"Her Majesty was also shown special items from the House’s historic collection of books."

During the visit, she met with famous children's author Jacqueline Wilson and comedian Sir Lenny Henry before delivering a short speech on stage. She also joined Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho on stage, where the pair chatted about books they loved as children

One youngster, Bess aged nine, asked the Queen: "Are there any fictional places from a book that you would like to travel to?"

Camilla joked: "One place I won't be going to is The Cat in The Hat."

Then added: "One place I think I'd love to go is Hogwarts. I'd like to jump on the Express and I'd like to go to Hogwarts and sit in that wonderful hall and wait for the hat to come round and pick a house for me.

"I'd like to look at Dumbledore, and Hagrid, and Snape, and see all the pictures going mad and people jumping out of pictures and the food flying about, I think it would be a proper magical experience, and that's a place I'd really like to go to."

It’s not the first time Camilla has spoken of her love of the Harry Potter books, as she’s previously revealed that she enjoys reading the popular seven-part book series to her grandchildren, "more than anything else".

Camilla also delivered an address, saying: "I'm sorry about the weather, I lived in Sussex for many years and it was always sunny.

"As the proud Patron of Charleston, I am delighted to welcome you to this year's Literary Festival, in a place rightly described by a previous resident as ‘an earthly paradise’.”

She continued: "I hasten to add that, whatever you might suspect, I am not actually Victorian myself."