Prince Charles is missing hugs with his family during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 71-year-old royal – who admitted he "got away quite lightly" when he contracted coronavirus – revealed he is missing his parents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and his grandchildren during the lockdown.
Speaking to Sky News, Charles said: "Well I haven’t seen my father for a long time.
"He’s going to be 99 next week, so yes, or my grandchildren or anything. I’ve been doing the Facetime, it’s all very well but…"
Asked how he felt being away from his family, Charles said: "Well it’s terribly sad, let alone one’s friends.
"But fortunately at least you can speak to them on telephones and occasionally do this sort of thing. But it isn’t the same, is it? You really just want to give people a hug."
And Charles said he is mindful that everyone is having a tough time during the pandemic.
He explained: "I do totally understand so many people’s frustrations, difficulties, grief and anguish and I mean I’m just trying to do my best to find and help and encourage ways to enable people to go on doing that, but in a way that doesn’t wreck everything at the same time around us.
"The most important thing is to make sure that the economy can function again.
"And that people’s livelihoods and their businesses, and everything else, and employment is possible.
"All these things are going to have to be incremental anyway, but the point is that in order to avoid even worse situations in the future and more disease, we have to, we have to find a way to ensure that in the next 10 years, because otherwise, we will lose this battle against accelerating climate change and global warming because if we go on like this with temperatures rising inexorably then the whole of life becomes increasingly impossible.
"So we have no alternative but to do things in a better way."