HRH The Countess of Wessex took part in a clay pigeon shot to benefit Child Line and Dyslexia Action.

Their Royal Highness meet pupils learning about the realities of teenage parenting during an engagement on their 10th wedding anniversary.

TRH The Earl and Countess of Wessex celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary today.  They posed for photographers at an engagement of Whitton School and Sports College where the charity Straight Talking was holding classes taken by teenage mums designed to inform students about the realities of being a young parent.

Straight Talking has  benefited from donations from the royal couple’s Wessex Youth Trust, a charitable foundation they set up with the money raised from the television rights to their wedding in 1999. It has since raised almost £1.1 million and provided financial support to 158 charities affecting teenagers and young people.

Sophie and Edward were married at St George’s Chapel in Windsor on June 19 1999, after a mutual passion for the ancient sport of Real Tennis brought them together.  They now have two children, Lady Louise Windsor, five, and 18-month-old Viscount Severn.   During their visit to the school the couple shared some of their parenting experiences with the pupils involved in a series of workshops which included listening to testimonies from young mothers, working out a family budget and learning the practicalities of being a mother or father.

‘It is so much harder than you ever think it will be,’  the Countess told one pupil. Afterwards the couple looked delighted to be given a bouquet of flowers each and a card to mark their anniversary, which is traditionally celebrated with a gift of tin. Sophie beamed and rubbed her husband’s back as they posed for pictures. Wessex Youth Trust chairman Mark Foster-Brown, who was at university with Edward, said: ‘Sophie is very grounded. ‘A lot of us would struggle in the role she’s found herself in but they make a good team together.’