RAY MARTIN 'CHARLES SHOCKED ME'

The veteran TV journalist reveals what it was like interviewing the monarch

- Wade Sellers

Veteran journalist Ray Martin remembers the feeling he had when he was told he'd be interviewing Prince Charles during his tour of Australia in 1994.

Ray, then 49 and working at A Current Affair, felt excited, however he entered the chat with a bit of a sense of trepidation - he is a staunch republican and had already experienced a particularly prickly interview with Charles' father Prince Philip.

And yet the man Ray encountered, who almost three decades later would become the King of England, was anything but the image of a stifled, media-trained royal he had believed him to be.

Here, Ray, now 78, reveals surprising details about the day and why he thinks he has his work cut out for him as King.

Watching the interview now, you seem so cool, calm and collected. How were you really feeling?

I was nervous, but only at the start. Luckily, on the way to the interview, I was talking to my cab driver and told him that I was there to interview Charles, and he said, "Oh, what a bugger of a job," and that became my first question, asking him if it actually is a bugger of a job. Thankfully, he laughed and said, "I guess it is," and we were both relaxed after that - I was thankful for that cabbie.