Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall the patron, president and a member of numerous charities and organisations. Since 1994, she has taken action on osteoporosis, earning honours and awards. She has also raised awareness in areas including rape and sexual abuse, literacy, animal welfare and poverty. Camilla Rosemary Shand was born at King's College Hospital, London, on 17 July 1947. She grew up in The Laines – an 18th-century country house in Plumpton, East Sussex – and a three-storey house in South Kensington, her family's second home. Her parents were British Army officer turned businessman Major Bruce Shand (1917–2006) and his wife, Rosalind ("née" Cubitt; 1921–1994).
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and French literature at the University of London Institute in Paris for six months. On 25 March 1965, Camilla was a debutante in London, one of 311 that year. After moving from home, she shared a small flat in Kensington with her friend Jane Wyndham, niece of decorator Nancy Lancaster. She later moved into a larger flat in Belgravia, which she shared with her landlady Lady Moyra Campbell, the daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, and later with Virginia Carington, daughter of the politician Lord Carrington. Virginia was married to Camilla's uncle Henry Cubitt from 1973 until 1979 (and in