The unroyal reason Queen Camilla isn’t on her family WhatsApp group

It may be expected that members of the royal family have access to the latest technology, enabling them to stay connected with their nearest and dearest with ease.

However, Queen Camilla has opted to keep it simple with her phone of choice, embracing a ’90s Nokia “brick” phone, meaning she can’t be part of her family WhatsApp group as her old-school phone doesn’t support the app.

© WPA Pool

The revelation was made by Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, 49, in a recent interview with Woman & Home magazine. When asked if his family had a WhatsApp group, he replied: “We do—my children, my sister and cousins—but my mum still uses an old-fashioned Nokia telephone, so [she] can’t. I think it’s for security.”

During her reign, Queen Elizabeth II reportedly had a slightly more advanced phone but was “defeated by apps,” according to Gyles Brandreth’s book, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait.

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He wrote: “She had her own mobile phone, and obliging grandchildren ready to show her how it worked. She understood ‘texting’, though was rather defeated by ‘apps’.”

He also added that, under no circumstances, should phones be present at the dinner table. “She did not allow her grandchildren to bring their ‘devices’ to the dining table, under any circumstances,” he penned.

© Mathieu Polak

Tom recently opened up about life as part of the royal family in an exclusive interview with HELLO!. During the candid chat, Tom shared what a brilliant mother the Queen is and revealed how protective he felt when she was thrust into public life.

“Especially in the bad days, the mid-nineties—the aggression of the paparazzi, the screaming, the shouting, and she didn’t have a network to protect her. I remember high-speed chases down the M4 that were incredibly dangerous.”

Was he ever angry with or resentful towards her? “No. Never, never, never. She has always been—and this is not just PR—such a good mother.”

He added: “I come from a very laid-back family,” says Tom, whose father is retired army officer Andrew Parker Bowles, whom Camilla married in 1973 and divorced in 1995. “We all gather around the table. We all love food. We all love a drink.”