My skiing days are behind me, King Charles tells factory worker during Middlesbrough ‘royal away day’

He was once a frequent visitor the Swiss Alps at this time of year for family ski trips, often pictured going down the slopes with his sons.

But King Charles III has revealed his skiing days are behind him when he chatted to a Swiss engineer during a trip to a wind turbine factory in Middlesbrough.

The monarch was speaking to Avzi Jusufi yesterday during a ‘royal away day’ as he visited the SeAH Wind plant which manufactures 400ft long turbine bases.

The King, 76, was shown a calibration roll machine which smooths the bend steel sheets into perfect cylinders as part of the manufacturing process.

Mr Jusufi and Charles spoke about his native Switzerland and the mountains, according to the engineer who is working on installing the equipment.

King Charles meets workers and apprentices at SeAH Wind plant in Middlesbrough yesterday

Charles with SeAH Wind’s chief operations officer Peter Ivy in Middlesbrough yesterday

The King presses a button on a machine yesterday at SeAH Wind plant in Middlesbrough

Colleague David Croft, from Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute, said: ‘The King said ‘I think my skiing days are behind me’.’

The King learnt to ski aged 14 and had been visiting the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Klosters nearly every winter over a period of 45 years.

But he cancelled a trip in 2023 to ensure he would be fit and healthy for his Coronation at Westminster Abbey that May and avoid any accidents.

The following year, Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in February 2024 and could not travel while he underwent treatment.

Charles with William during a photo session for their ski holidays in Klosters in February 1998

Charles with his sons Princes Harry and William on a ski break at Klosters in March 2005

Charles with William and Harry on the slopes in Klosters, Switzerland, in February 1994

Charles queues to get on the ski lift in Klosters during his holiday to Switzerland in 1994

Now, it appears that the King has decided not to go skiing again.

Charles and Princess Diana would regularly go to the Swiss Alps together in the early years of their marriage – often with Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York.

In 1988, Charles was skiing off piste at Klosters on one of Europe’s most dangerous runs when he narrowly escaped an avalanche.

He managed to jump out of the way to reach a ledge, but the incident killed his good friend Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to his late mother Queen Elizabeth II.

Charles helped save the life of another friend – Patty Palmer-Tomkinson – by digging her out of the snow and talking to her so she would stay conscious until a helicopter arrived.

Charles with William and Harry on a ski lift during a trip to Whistler in Canada in 1998

Charles and his son Harry ski down a slope on Mount Gotschna in Klosters in January 1999

A smiling Prince Charles goes to take his first ski lesson at Tarsap in Switzerland in 1963

He later recalled that he had never seen anything so terrifying as the avalanche.

Charles returned to the slopes with his sons Prince Harry and William in the 1990s, and they would often pose together for the cameras.

And it was in 2005 in the Swiss Alps that Charles was famously caught on a hot mic criticising then-BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell just eight days before Charles was due to marry Queen Camilla.

Charles was heard to say under his breath: ‘Bloody people. I can’t bear that man. I mean, he is so awful, he really is.’