Queen is teased over her love of weather apps

The Queen gets teased about her “obsession” with weather apps, a children’s writer has revealed.

Francesca Simon, the bestselling Horrid Henry series author, attended a charity event with Queen Camilla during a downpour on Tuesday, when the pair discussed the miserable July weather.

The event, to mark the National Literacy Trust’s 30th anniversary, was originally to take place in the gardens of Clarence House but was rearranged for inside the building after the day turned wet in London.

Simon revealed that she shared a joke with the Queen about their climate app habits during the event, saying: “We were laughing about our mutual love of weather apps.

“She mentioned it was raining in France, where I’m meant to be today, and I said, ‘Yeah, I know’.

“She said everybody teases her, because I’m also looking at weather in various parts of the world, and she’s the same – so we were laughing at our mutual obsession.”

The reception brought together bestselling authors and volunteers for the trust, which works to give children and adults of all ages literacy skills, a cause that the Queen champions.

Simon, an ambassador for the trust, said the Queen’s support was “invaluable” to the charity and praised her commitment to the cause.

The author added: “She turns up and puts her passion for reading, which is very genuine, behind it – so it’s really fun to have that kind of commitment that’s much more than skin deep.”

The charity, of which the Queen is patron, has recently created 1,000 reading champions across the country who help foster literacy in disadvantaged communities. 

Sixty of them were invited to Clarence House for the anniversary celebrations.

During the event, the Queen cut a special cake and addressed attendees with an impromptu speech that paid tribute to the charity’s work. She said she hoped illiteracy would be “a thing of the past” in the next 30 years.

She told her guests: “A huge thank you to you all. You all do a brilliant job. I hope the next 30 years will achieve something that makes illiteracy a relic of the past. Thank you so, so much for all you do.”

While there, the Queen – an avid reader – met authors including Adele Parks, a lauded writer of women’s fiction, Sarah Waters, who wrote Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, and Malorie Blackman, Children’s Laureate during 2013-15.

She has been a patron of the charity since 2010 and was presented with five books selected by volunteers, including Maya Angelou’s Why The Caged Bird Sings, a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of the American writer and poet, and travelogue Handle With Care: Travels with My Family by Shreya Sen-Handley.

Axel Scheffler, illustrator of The Gruffalo, agreed that Camilla’s work with the charity was “immensely important”.

“I know she’s read The Gruffalo to her grandchildren,” he added.

During lockdown, the Queen launched her Reading Room project which began as an online reading club and has since grown into a major initiative which has a podcast featuring leading authors and an annual literary festival at Hampton Court Palace.

Over the past 30 years, the National Literacy Trust has supported more than five million children with reading and writing skills and worked with nearly 17,000 schools.

In 2023, the charity gifted 528,303 books and is currently campaigning to ensure all primary schools have a library by 2028.