The Queen has opened this year’s Charleston Festival – to celebrate the power of books and reading for children and young people. Appearing alongside Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho and local primary school children, Her Majesty named Victorian novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett as one of her favourite writers – before joking that she herself, is not Victorian. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
00:03 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
00:06 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
00:33 [APPLAUSE]
00:37 Good morning, everybody.
00:44 I'm sorry about the weather.
00:45 I lived in Sussex for many years, and it was always sunny.
00:48 So I don't know what's happened today, but anyway, it's
00:52 very, very nice to be here again.
00:55 As the proud patron of Charleston,
00:58 I'm delighted to welcome you all to this year's literary
01:01 festival in a place rightly described
01:05 by a previous resident as an earthly paradise.
01:11 I was asked before I came to think of an author whose books
01:14 I loved when I was the same age as some of you children.
01:20 It's always hard to choose one favorite writer,
01:23 because there are so many out there.
01:25 But I've selected a Victorian novelist who
01:28 died exactly 100 years ago.
01:32 I hasten to add that whatever you may suspect,
01:35 I'm not actually Victorian myself.
01:40 Now, Frances Hodgson Burnett was someone, like all of us,
01:44 who understood the incredible thrill of reading.
01:49 She wrote The Secret Garden and A Little Princess,
01:53 amongst many others.
01:54 Now, I think it's time for us to experience
01:57 a bit of magic for ourselves.
02:00 So without further ado, let me declare today's festival open.
02:06 And let me leave you with a final word from Frances.
02:10 Everything's a story.
02:12 You are a story.
02:13 I am a story.
02:15 Thank you.
02:16 [APPLAUSE]
02:21 I'd only fit you in places for a book
02:23 that you'd like to travel to and write about.
02:26 One place I think I'd love to go to is Hogwarts.
02:30 I think I'd like to jump on the express,
02:33 and I'd like to go to Hogwarts and sit in that wonderful hall
02:37 and wait for the hat to come around and pick a house.
02:42 [CHATTER]
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02:49 [CHATTER]
02:53 [CHATTER]
02:56 (chatter)
02:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]