Finding Harmony: A King's Vision

What is the opposite of harmony?

We could argue, it's a disconnection.

Like being cut off from each other and from nature.

New technological breakthroughs keep making life better for so many...

...but could we be losing something vital along the way?

Every day, we're told the natural world is on fire.

Where's the hope?

Well, we've been out searching.

Which brings us to Harmony.

People who practice Harmony invite us to see the world in a new way.

They suggest that the very things we've become disconnected from

may hold the key to our future.

And they claim that, even if we've broken nature,

once we bring her back, the land, people and communities can all be healed.

If they're right, then maybe the future is full of hope.

And the man who has spent a lifetime building Harmony...

Well, that's also a bit of a surprise.

-I wasn't... I wasn't expecting that. -

A reception crew, sir.

- -

What is Harmony?

And what's it got to do with King Charles III?

As it happens, for over 50 years, the King has been experimenting

with ways to bring nature back into every part of our lives.

He calls it Harmony, and it's been catching on.

...3D manner to make it look like a 3D effect and fill the shadows.

A key item I'd really like to show you are these caskets here...

Today more than ever, people are flocking to venues

run by The King's Foundation

to learn how they can create Harmony for their own families and communities.

And that's certainly what interested me.

One of our jobs here is to bring together different people, so you've got--

Yes, you've got presidents, but you've got academics,

-you've got farmers, you've got-- -Yeah. Thought leaders. You've got--

Yeah, all sorts of people.

And-and that doesn't happen very often, so when you bring them together,

that's when you get really interesting sparks.

Now, you two have to meet my fantastic friend...

The boss has a few favorite phrases and one of them is,

-"Seeing is believing." - Mm.

If you get people to Dumfries House and they see what's going on,

they'll get it.

And they go, "Right, w-we need this. We need to take it back.

-We need to do something." - Mm. Mm.

Throughout his life,

the King developed a core set of beliefs about our world,

which have at times got him into trouble.

Give them a good chance to see them...

-Definitely, definitely. -

Over and over, people even dismissed him as crazy,

but today his ideas seem more like common sense.

To follow this journey, we will travel with him back in time...

Good morning, everybody. Good morning.

-Good morning. - This is our film team.

This is Jane, who is the assistant producer, sir.

...as it's the King's untold personal story

that shows us how Harmony can transform our future.

-Had we better crack on? -Absolutely.

Uh, I haven't introduced you to the technical team.

They've now set themselves up.

-This is Adam who is doing the sound, sir. - Lovely to meet you, Your Majesty.

-Uh... -That is heavy, though.

- It is quite heavy. -

Anyway, I l-look forward to seeing how it all ends up, if you know what I mean.

It's a heck of a story.

It will be nice to try and see if we can get through to people,

but who knows?

Her Royal Highness is the proud and happy mother of a Prince.

The salute is fired,

and in the Monarch's home lies the infant boy who will one day be king.

I was born in 1948.

By the mid 1950s,

a frenzy of change was sweeping the world...

...and that created a new age of radical experimentation

in every major field of human endeavor.

It's no accident that the King discovered Harmony

during a time of unprecedented change.

Historians call it the Great Acceleration.

When the King was born, our planet was home to 2.5 billion people,

but in mere decades, that number has tripled.

And as the human population exploded,

our ability to house and feed ourselves grew even faster.

Suddenly, millions of us began living longer, consuming more

and traveling the world in ways our forebears couldn't dream of.

While most people in 1960s Britain were enjoying the benefits,

some noticed that all this progress came at a price.

When I was a teenager in the '60s,

I saw so much being destroyed around us.

All our precious flourished meadows and wetlands

and the hedges were ripped up and the trees cut down.

The centers of our towns and cities were ripped out.

You know, it was all going on at a huge pace.

And I remember thinking, "But this is gonna go too far."

At the time, public discussions about the environment were rare.

So, when the 21-year-old Prince gave one of his first public speeches,

many were shocked by what he had to say.

We are faced, at the moment,

with the horrifying effects of pollution

in all its cancerous forms.

There is the growing menace of oil pollution at sea.

There is chemical pollution discharged into rivers from factories

and chemical plants, which clogs up the rivers

with toxic substances and adds to the filth in the seas.

Well, it was quite a long time ago,

and I, I remember being... well,

profoundly, you know, concerned about all this.

It seemed crazy to go on

without thinking carefully about how we manage all this.

By the time I started to hear the then Prince of Wales

making these statements, they did, they did resonate.

I can remember thinking, yes, this chap is concerned about things,

which of course wasn't something that you'd expect

from a member of the royal family, you know.

They-they didn't, they didn't... they didn't talk about these things.

The Prince may have lived a life apart,

yet his views struck a common chord.

By April 22, 1970,

20 million people took to the streets to celebrate the first Earth Day.

Many say the environmental movement was born.

There was a shift of consciousness

which was going on all over the world at that time.

And I think there was some sort of yearning

that the Prince had to be part of that.

Probably never quite articulated, but I think nevertheless felt.

So, even though he had this very privileged upbringing,

very separate from normal people,

at some level, he was affected by this atmosphere of change.

Jamie Oliver once said

he was a bit of a hippie, and I think that's probably true.

- -Come on.

Come along.

Come on.

Now...

Here.

Come on.

- -

Oh, it's all right. Let me see.

Come on.

Come on.

- -All right, all right.

See, that looks good. That's a good haul.

Well, the great thing is you give them something in return, always.

At least they can peck about out here. They love it.

There we are.

In 1980, the then Prince of Wales moved into Highgrove,

where he still lives today.

What no one knew back then was that he had plans

to turn his home into a test bed for his radical ideas about Harmony.

When I first came here, this was completely empty.

And, um, and half the wall

had gone.

I then thought of a plan which was based on

the St. Andrew's cross and the St. George's cross.

I wanted to find ways of ensuring that you could rescue

all these, um, threatened heritage varieties.

- Yes. Yeah. -Of everything.

You have all the vegetables: potatoes, cauliflower, peas, beans.

I mean, a lot of them were being just abandoned.

So, I did my utmost to have as many rare breeds here as possible,

to demonstrate how valuable they are,

because of course concentrating on just a few varieties

-makes us unbelievably vulnerable... -Mm.

...as we're finding, to disease and everything else.

And half the battle, I think, is to find the right varieties.

If you want to have decent baked potatoes,

which I love, you've got to get the crispy skins.

So, what do you--

So, the Red Duke of Yorks are very good...

...we've discovered, again through trial and error.

The King's efforts to protect the diversity of fruits and vegetables

was a part of his overall mission

to bring nature back into farming and gardening.

In the first half of the 20th century,

old farming systems couldn't keep up with the sudden increase in human population.

Mass famines claimed tens of millions of lives all over the world.

But scientists came to the rescue in what has been hailed as the green revolution.

They invented a suite of industrial farming techniques

that proved wildly successful.