DJ Charles serves up royal remix during visit to arts organisation

The King hit the DJ decks to spin some tunes while on a visit to Manchester.

Charles met young people who have received support from the King’s Trust charity as he toured Aviva Studios, home of the city’s arts organisation Factory International.

Aspiring DJ Christian St Louis, 22, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, invited the King to try his hand on the mixing table.

As he put Charles through his paces, Mr St Louis explained: “First, you load up the tracks and then play this one … there are so many buttons. Once you know what to do, it’s easy.”

The King moved to the groove as an onlooker said: “It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?”

Charles laughed and replied: “You just have to get the hang of it.”

Mr St Louis, formerly from east London, told the King that taking a DJing course through the trust had been “more than helpful”.

He said: “I always wanted to DJ. Now I know I can do it.”

He said he was looking for a job to save up and buy his own decks, with a goal of bringing out his own EP music recording.

In 2024, the King’s Trust joined forces with the Elba Hope Foundation, a public charity founded by actor Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina to launch Creative Futures, a range of free courses designed to inspire young people through the arts, building their skills and confidence to work in the creative industries.

Elba was supported by the King’s Trust, formerly the Prince’s Trust, when he was a teenager.

Another beneficiary from the King’s Trust, Mariama Jallow, 19, from Manchester, read her own poem to the King.

Ms Jallow undertook a creative music course and went on to learn about health and social care.

Charles told her he had already seen an example of her poetry which Elba had shown him on a piece of film.

He said: “It was fantastic. Really, really good.”

Charles also met young people who had learned skills in stage construction such as lighting, sound and production through the Factory Academy based at Aviva Studios.

Creative Futures has helped more than 100 young people across Manchester and is now supporting young people in other parts of the UK.

Launched in 2018 by Factory International, the Factory Academy aims to provide accessible career pathways into the creative industries and boost creative skills across the region.

The Factory Academy has collaborated with the King’s Trust to deliver programmes from Creative Futures.

Charles unveiled a plaque to mark his visit before he was treated to a performance outside by a choir from the Royal Northern College of Music.

The King spoke briefly to members of the public who gathered outside the city-centre venue including child-minder Jodie Pownall, from New Mills, Derbyshire, who brought along one-year-old twins Teddy and Kuba, two-year-old Jackson, and Ronnie, Stevie and George, all aged one.

They were rewarded for braving the rain as Charles posed for a photograph.

Next on the royal visit, Charles spent time at the launch of Circularity in Practice, a new initiative repurposing and resuing pre-loved items to reduce waste.

The nationwide project invites UK firms of all sizes and sectors, to cut waste and promote the circular use of materials that would otherwise go to waste.

“Let’s hope you can make a real movement out of it, now you have signed up,” Charles told business leaders gathered at the event.

And the King got his hands on the tools at the launch of the project at the Renew Hub on Trafford Park, run by waste and recycling firm Suez.

The King handled a compression staple gun to finish off a French-style settee, reupholstered with fabric from London’s Royal Opera House.

Paul Cunliffe, 56, from Winstanley, Wigan, teaches volunteers about the craft of upholstering and renewing furniture and invited Charles to use the staple gun.

He said afterwards: “It was all right, I was just, obviously, you don’t want him shooting himself.

“I think he’s supportive, very supportive.”

The Renew Hub, launched in 2021 by Suez, is the UK’s largest reuse and repair facility, located at Trafford Park in Greater Manchester.

The King viewed the thousands of items salvaged from local council dumps which will now be repurposed, including thousands of electrical items, bicycles, vacuum cleaners and all types of furniture.

These are then resold, with the money donated to charity.

The hub said it had already refurbished and recycled 500,000 items, sold through shops in Altrincham, Oldham and Salford and online, and had raised £1.6 million for good causes over the last four years.

Earlier, Charles was greeted on arrival by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, Councillor Jane Brophy, Mayor of Trafford, and Michelle Pinggera, chair of the Circularity in Practice Initiative, before being given a tour of the facility.

John Scanlon, chief executive of Suez, who accompanied Charles during the tour, said: “So today we’ve had a launch of an initiative, a task force, Circularity in Practice, it’s about bringing together lots of people from different industries to look at how can we do things smarter with what other people would normally throw away as waste.

“How can we give it a second life? How can I either sell that into members of the public or how can we then reuse that in industry or to make sure that we don’t need to take raw materials out of the earth.

“And what’s been very clear from the outset is, His Majesty has been super passionate about the environment and really wanting to champion how we can make sure that items that other people discard become a real valuable raw material going forward.

“So it was really great to see how interested he was.

“I think I can say, you know, he was here to be scheduled for a certain amount of time and that overran quite a lot because he was really keen to talk to lots of the volunteers who work here to understand what they’re doing and how they’re making things more circular.

“A great privilege for me, personally, and for our company.

“And for everybody that works here, all the team, to have their kind of work recognised in such a manner.”

Later in the day, the King visited the Greencore food manufacturing site in Warrington, Cheshire, where he was shown meals on the production line which will be donated to communities in need through the Coronation Food Project.

The project, inspired by the monarch, led to the formation of the Alliance Food Sourcing initiative which has “rescued” more than 10 million meals from surplus food and production capacity, as well as donations from the industry.

While touring the site, which makes Italian ready meals, the King spoke to factory worker Leanne Scott, 42, who was monitoring a production line of lasagnes which will be donated.

She said: “I’ve worked here for 20 years and I’ve never met a king before, so it’s one for the memory box.

“He was really pleasant and a really nice guy. I think what he’s been doing for charity is great.”

Members of staff waited outside to see Charles before he left.

Leah Ellis, 44, said she asked the King what his favourite Italian dish was.

She told the Press Association: “He didn’t say but he did say he likes a good parmesan.

“He asked if we get to travel to Italy to try the dishes and we have been to Italy to look at products.

“It’s been very exciting today since we found out he was coming, we’ve been watching out of the window.

“It was so lovely he came out and spoke to us.”

Chief executive of the Greencore Group Dalton Philips said: “It was a privilege to welcome the King and to showcase the innovation happening across Greencore.

“From pioneering new ways to reduce food waste to developing the highly skilled engineers of the future, our teams are proving just how dynamic and forward‑thinking the food industry can be.”