Queen Camilla Makes Personal Revelation in Impromptu Speech at Hospital

Queen Camilla slipped a comment about her connection to the hospital she was visiting in a surprise speech during her latest day out.

On Jan. 21, the Queen, 77, stepped out in Swindon to tour and open the new Emergency Department at Great Western Hospital. The royal met staff, patients, volunteers and others involved in the $41 million expansion for urgent and emergency care and recounted her previous personal experience at the medical center.

According to Rebecca English of the Daily Mail, Queen Camilla revealed that she gave birth to her daughter Laura there in an "off the cuff" address. She made the revelation while unveiling a plaque to officially open the new department.

"I was thinking about it, and I probably haven't been inside this hospital for 47 years, since I had my daughter, so that was a few years ago," the Queen said in a video that English shared to X. "But I really wanted to congratulate everybody who has done such a brilliant job with this place, and everyone who is working here."

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"I do know from first-hand experience the difference you are making to this part of the country. So congratulations to you all. Thank you," the Queen concluded.

Elsewhere in the address, the Queen shouted out her grandchildren and said that they have received emergency care at Swindon.

"I am so impressed by this A&E. I have had very good feedback because I have had friends who come here and grandchildren who have been here on several occasions. I quite often get pictures saying, 'Guess where I am? Back in the A&E in Swindon,' so I know it quite well," she joked, the Daily Mail reported.

Before she married King Charles in 2005, Queen Camilla welcomed two children with her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. Camilla and Andrew wed in 1973, and had son Tom in 1974 and daughter Laura in 1978.

Tom and Laura both later married, and went on to welcome children of their own. Tom, a food writer, shares daughter Lola and son Freddy with his ex-wife Sara Buys, while Laura and her husband Harry Lopes share daughter Eliza and twin sons Gus and Louis, and all of Queen Camilla's grandsons memorably acted as page boys at her coronation.

Camilla and Andrew, a now-retired British Army officer, divorced in 1995 after living apart for a few years, and she would marry the future King 10 years later. (Charles and Camilla's yearslong romance notably overlapped with their respective first marriages — Camilla to Andrew, and Charles to Princess Diana.)

Though they have been exes for decades, Queen Camilla and her first husband seem to share a friendly relationship. Andrew was a guest at her May 2023 coronation alongside King Charles, the Royal Ascot in July and most recently, the London launch party for their son Tom's latest cookbook in September.

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Queen Camilla, Andrew and Laura all went out to celebrate Tom's publication of Cooking and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III, which chronicled 200 years of royal recipes, as well as King Charles and Queen Camilla's go-to foods today!

Speaking to PEOPLE around the book launch, food writer Tom praised his mother's tireless dedication to royal duty and said he was "incredibly proud" of her.

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"She’s at an age when most people think of retiring, but she never complains; she just gets on with it," Tom told PEOPLE then.

Following the hospital stop, Queen Camilla traveled to Prospect Hospice to help the charity celebrate its 45th anniversary and 30 years at its Wroughton hub in her post as president.

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