Queen shows off table tennis skills as King rues end to his skiing days

The Queen showed off her ping-pong prowess when she joined the King at a community centre to celebrate good causes in Middlesbrough.

Charles and Camilla enjoyed their first joint away day since the King’s cancer diagnosis and toured the town where more than a thousand welcomed the couple, with the King walking within a few feet of an anti-monarchy protest.

The King carried out a solo engagement visiting an offshore wind turbine manufacturer where he confessed his skiing days were behind him, while the Queen celebrated literacy and told a hall of school children “reading is so important…if you can read you can do anything”.

But in a lighter moment the King’s consort picked up a bat and ball and joined a group of teenagers having an impromptu match.

She is known to like a game of ping-pong and with her table-tennis partner Alesha Hussain, celebrating her 15th birthday on Thursday, took on 14-year-old Kaleb Autsun.

Alesha, who was representing a young carers’ group, said afterwards: “She was good, I didn’t know she liked table tennis.

“We just started playing and it was good fun.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Their opponent Kaleb was impressed with the opposition, saying: “It was nice, that was a new experience because I’ve never seen any of the royal family before.”