Royals on Social Media

The royals are really getting back in the swing of things after the summer with plenty of engagements and almost as many appearances on social media. We've had hard hats, hard stories and hard luck this week...here are the royals on social media.

A sporting chance 

As the summer came to an end there was lots of sport on the royal agenda with Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark getting sweaty as he completed the Swedish Super Classic at the Lidingo Race. A video was shared on the official Danish Royal Family You Tube channel featuring a faintly out of breath future king talking about his sporting dreams - the full video can be seen here.

Prince William and Prince Harry told everyone about their sporting sibling rivalry through the week as the Vice Patron of the Welsh Rugby Union (king in waiting) and the Vice Patron of the English Rugby Union (down to fifth in the line of succession) went head to head for a crunch pool match in the World Cup at Twickenham. Just hours before big brother saw his team win (let's face it, Harry is used to being second), the official Kensington Royal Instagram and Twitter accounts posted photos of the two showing their love of the game with Wills winning best image as well.

The Duke of Cambridge, Vice Patron of the Welsh Rugby Union, jokes with Wales Lock Jake Ball, after The Duke presented him and the Welsh Rugby Union squad with their 2015 Rugby World Cup caps at Guildhall in London. #RWC2015 Image © Press Association

A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Sep 21, 2015 at 1:42pm PDT

A helping hand

The desire to use a royal position to help others and to highlight often difficult causes was evident for many ruling houses this week. The Duchess of Cambridge paid a secret visit to a women's prison in Surrey to hear about work by the organisation RAPt to help prisoners overcome addictions. Images of the event, part of an Autumn programme for the duchess linked to mental health causes, were shared on the official Kensington Royal Instagram account.

The Duchess of Cambridge has today visited Send women's prison to join the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust (RAPt), an addiction charity working to help prisoners addicted to drugs and alcohol. Following the visit, The Duchess of Cambridge said: "I was reminded today how addictions lie at the heart of so many social issues. I saw again today that a failure to intervene early in life to tackle mental health problems and other challenges can have profound consequences for people throughout their lives. I am grateful to the women I met for sharing their difficult personal stories with me."

A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Sep 25, 2015 at 6:34am PDT

Queen Silvia of Sweden, who has a high profile when it comes to campaigning on human rights issues especially those affecting children, was in New York for meetings about her work at the United Nations.  An image was shared on the official Swedish Royal Instagram account.

Statsminister Stefan Löfven och Drottningen vid öppnandet av FN:s generalförsamling, den 70:e sedan FN bildades. Påven Franciskus talar under förmiddagen. // Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Queen Silvia at the opening of the UN General Assembly, the 70th since the UN was founded. Pope Francis will speak during the morning session. #kungahuset #UN

A photo posted by Kungahuset (@kungahuset) on Sep 25, 2015 at 6:27am PDT

Head turning hats

Prince William and Prince Harry donned hard hats in the week to help out on a project in Manchester to build a veterans' village for former Armed Service personnel - a cause close to both their hearts. To take part in the work, organised by BBC One programme DIY SOS, they had to don hard hats. Harry may have lost the rugby but he won this one by a mile - as the video shared on the Kensington Royal Instagram account shows.

Prince Harry tries out some landscape gardening for the #diysosveterans big build project in #Manchester. The DIY SOS team are renovating houses, streetscaping an entire Street and creating a new support centre, run by Walking with the Wounded and Royal British Legion, for the benefit of veterans in desperate need of housing.

A video posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Sep 23, 2015 at 4:14am PDT