Last Friday, nearly all of the UK’s population had that rare thing, a new shared common experience.
The country sat down to listen to the first address from its new king and, for anyone under the age of 70, it was a first.
King Charles III made his address following the sudden and unexpected death of his mother Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, an event that is still now hard to take in for many,
Indeed, given the seeming indestructibility and reverence towards Queen Elizabeth II during her 70-year reign, there had been plenty of speculation in the past that Charles might not make it to be king at all.
But all that changed last week and now King Charles has been proclaimed, a new era has officially started.
Such is the media spotlight on the monarchy these days, that Charles’s private life is pretty much a known quantity, especially in the ongoing raking over of his ill-fated marriage to Princess Diana.
How he will react to his new constitutional role as King is less certain, especially when the UK is going through possibly its biggest crisis in decades.
His mother made it a point never or rarely to venture into the world of politics, but Charles has already publicly nailed his colours firmly to the mast of sustainability, green energy and environmentalism.
Commentators have suggested that one of his first formal acts might even be to give Royal Assent to the new energy bill allowing fracking and new North Sea oil and gas exploration licences.
However, this is likely to need only ministerial approval according to the government.
Squaring his beliefs on the environment with a world of soaring gas and electricity prices, or at least not getting involved, will be a tricky balancing act.
So will dealing with the Commonwealth, an institution decried as an anachronism by many but one that thrived under his mother’s watch.
Britain’s colonial past, calls for reparations and more countries wanting complete independence from the UK all might come into sharp focus without the binding glue of Queen Elizabeth
Handling the wishes of countries in the Caribbean as well as Canada and Australia will require a skilful diplomatic touch, something that his mother proved herself to possess time and time again.
Whether Charles can be an equally skilled and adept statesperson will be one of his key challenges.
In his first address, the King said the new Charlesian era will be more of the same, but as he also made clear, he has a very tough act to follow.