PRINCE Charles insisted he put his reaction speeds to the test when he stopped by the RAF stand at the Big Bang Workshop at Essex University.

Representatives were showcasing a training tool in which volunteers had to respond to queues and tap parts of large piece of equipment.

Corporal Pete Major, from the Armed Forces careers office based in Chatham, Kent, said: "It is all to do with hand-eye co-ordination, reflexes, speed and peripheral vision and he was really interested in it as a reactionary tool and it was a bit of fun.

"I didn't expect him to want to have a go. I suggested we got a 'guinea pig' from the audience to try it but he suggested he had a go.

"He had good fun doing it.

"I helped him with a couple of goes but I didn't want to show him up."