The King prompted laughter as he cracked a joke about his age during a visit to Aberdeenshire on Tuesday.
Charles, 77, visited Peterhead Port in Aberdeenshire on Tuesday and learned about the area’s upcoming projects in renewable energy.
He was impressed by the sheer scale of the area’s energy ecosystem – even quipping that he didn’t know if he’d still “be alive” by the time it’s completed.
While unveiling a plaque to commemorate his visit, he said: “It’s fantastic to see such a remarkable effort and teamwork and coordination. Whether I shall still be alive by the time you complete it, I don’t know!”
On the quay at Peterhead, the King met local members of the energy supply chain, including the Peterhead Energy Transition Forum. He also met representatives of Maritime Developments Ltd, a three-time recipient of the King’s Award for Enterprise.
The King still seemed to have capacity for humour after a difficult week for the royal family following the release of Earl Spencer’s memoir about his sister Princess Diana, Swan Song.
It includes claims that the King was ‘giddily elated’ following his ex-wife’s death, with Buckingham Palace issuing an unprecedented statement saying grief can “cloud reason, affect judgement, and colour memory”.
King Charles’s comments about his health
It’s not the first time Charles has made an off-the-cuff comment about his age and health on public engagements.
At the RHS Sandringham Flower Show in July, a member of the public attending the show told His Majesty: “I’m the same age as you. You are looking good!”, to which the King replied in good humour: “It gets much harder, doesn’t it?“
© Getty ImagesIn September 2025, during a visit to Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in the West Midlands, he told an onlooker: “This is the terrible thing, as I am discovering already. The bits don’t work so well when you get past 70.”
Earlier that year, in April, he made a quip about living “long enough” to see a tree he planted grow while on his Italian State Visit with Queen Camilla.
He has also admitted that his advancing age is limiting him in his activities, noting that his skiing days are “behind him” in February last year, while in October 2024, a young royal fan asked King Charles his favourite sport, to which the King replied: “I can’t do much now, too many injuries.”
The monarch was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, just weeks apart from the Princess of Wales, who is now in remission.
The King is still undergoing treatment, but in his most recent update in December 2025 shared the good news that it had been “reduced”.
King’s joke about ‘hazardous’ plaque unveiling
It’s lucky that Charles’s plaque unveiling went to plan, as he shared that they can be “hazardous” during a visit to the new headquarters of Great British Energy, also on Tuesday.
© POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesCharles joked: “Unveiling plaques can be a slightly hazardous occasion, which I have discovered to my cost on many occasions!”
After prompting laughter, the King added: “It is remarkable to see the extent of all the engineering skills in this part of the world.”
Charles has had several plaque unveilings go awry in the past, including at the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship earlier this month, and at Oxford Photovoltaics in March.
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