THE Prince of Wales is a grandfather for the first time.

Charles had already spoken of his delight at the prospect of a new addition to his family when Kate revealed she was pregnant.

The heir to the throne said he was “thrilled” and even joked about how the latest development in his eventful life had come at the age of 64.

He said: “It’s a very nice thought to become a grandfather in my old age, if I can say so.”

Behind the trappings of state the future King lives a life as normal as possible at his London home Clarence House and his country retreat Highgrove in Gloucestershire.

This was reflected in how he approached becoming a father - embracing his duties as a new dad - and suggests he will bring the same attitude to becoming a grandfather.

The Prince was involved with William’s childcare duties when he was a baby, changing his nappy and he could name his son’s favourite bath toy - a rubber duck.

Charles mentioned the toy in response to a question asked on an Australian radio phone-in programme during a royal tour Down Under in 1983.

When members of the public quizzed the heir to the throne and his wife Diana about what was William’s bath-time amusement, it was the Prince who came up with the answer first.

During Diana’s pregnancy he read books about childbirth, how to bring up a child and joined his wife at an antenatal class.

So Charles could expect William to bring the Prince over and leave the infant in his capable hands.

The Prince’s wife Camilla already has five grandchildren and so has plenty of experience of entertaining little ones.

Nicholas Davies, in his biography William, King For The 21st Century, highlighted the heir to the throne’s “new dad” role when his first son was born.

“Charles and Diana wandered in and out of the nursery at will, the Prince taking great delight in changing nappies and bathing his tiny son; Diana spent hours talking and playing with her little boy, as well as bottle-feeding him when she had finished breastfeeding him.”

The importance of the relationship between the grandparent and grandchild is something the heir to the throne knows well as he was very close to his grandmother, the Queen Mother, and “adored” her as a child.

When the Queen was away on her long tour of the Commonwealth during 1953/54 Charles, then just four, and his sister Anne, aged two, spent Christmas at Sandringham with “granny”.

After bonding with her grandson during this period the Queen Mother kept in constant touch with Charles, especially through letters, and the Prince will want to develop a similar relationship with his new grandchild.

In one of her letters the Queen Mother revealed the extent of her affection after the heir to the throne sent her flowers after her appendix operation in 1964: “My darling Charles, I can’t tell you how touched and delighted I was.”

She remained a constant for the Prince, who could turn to her whenever he needed support.

When she died in 2002 Charles was left devastated and movingly spoke about his loss: “She meant everything and I had dreaded, dreaded this moment. Somehow I never thought it would come. She seemed gloriously unstoppable.”

Charles’s involvement with the life of his grandson is likely to be different from the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s relationship with William and Harry when they were boys.

The Queen and Philip are from a generation where much of the upbringing of children was left to nannies and staff from the nursery.

But when William and his brother Harry were studying at Eton, very close to the Queen’s Windsor Castle home, they presumably were able to see their grandparents more often.

Harry has described Britain’s head of state as simply his grandmother behind closed doors.

Becoming a grandfather is a role Charles is also likely to take seriously.

Charles has been a strong advocate of taking action to protect the environment for many years.

He addressed a UN international climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 and the following year he gave a keynote speech to the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference.

In a recent interview, the Prince said: “I’ve gone on for years about the importance of thinking about the long term in relation to the environmental damage, climate change and everything else.

“We don’t, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren, to leave them with the real problem.

“I don’t want to be confronted by my future grandchild and (have) them say: ‘Why didn't you do something?’ So clearly now that we will have a grandchild, it makes it even more obvious to try and make sure we leave them something that isn’t a total poisoned chalice.”