by Penny Junor
But what probably helped the boys more than anything was having each other. They are such very good friends and so close that even today, the people who work for the Princes find it hard to think of them as separate entities. It is a closeness brought about in part because of their unique situation. They grew up not knowing who they could trust, who to attach themselves to, who would be there next week, who would be gone. They were unnerved by the shouting of photographers and the lurid headlines and stories about their mother and father. They had no shortage of love but life was full of uncertainties. What they could be certain of was each other; and long before their mother’s death, the early sibling rivalries and irritations were gone and they came to rely on each other, almost to parent each other. There was no one else who knew what they knew, who had heard what they’d heard, seen what they’d seen, felt what they had felt. After Diana’s death, the bond between them was their lifeline and they clung to it. And despite being the younger, Harry, the more adventurous and outgoing of the two, was as much a support to William as the other way round.
On the Monday after the funeral, Tiggy took both boys out to follow the Beaufort hunt on foot. On seeing them arrive at the meet, Captain Ian Farquhar, who as Master had known the boys and their father for as long as they had been living at Highgrove, went over to them and, speaking on behalf of the entire field, said very simply, ‘It’s good to see you, sirs. I just want you to know that we are all very, very sorry about your mother. You have our deepest sympathy and we were all incredibly proud of you on Saturday. That’s all I’m going to say, and now we’re going to get on with the day.’
‘Thank you,’ said William. ‘Yes, you’re right. We all need to get on with the day.’
Whether by nurture or nature, both boys had the Windsor ability to keep their emotions hidden. William, in particular, as a teenager, had been embarrassed by some of his mother’s public outpourings. By contrast, he had watched his father and the way he conducted himself so stoically, no matter what disaster had befallen him; and his grandmother, whose neutral expression is legendary. The Duke of Edinburgh, another stoic, had been dismayed by Charles’s tears when Lord Mountbatten died, and ever eager to win his father’s approval, he has scarcely let an eye well up publicly since. Behind closed doors he is a deeply emotional man who is easily moved to tears – and also to laughter. And behind closed doors the Queen is a delightfully astute and funny woman who inspires utter loyalty and utter devotion.
Stoicism, fortitude, self-restraint; all these very British qualities that the Windsors hold so dear are now outdated. But they are the qualities that have made the Queen such a universally loved and admired sovereign. We like the fact that after sixty years on the throne, we still don’t know anything about her. We know that she likes dogs, pigeons and horses and that she rides without a hard hat. We know nothing about her politics, her faith (except in broadest outline), her fears or foibles. And because we don’t know what she thinks or how she behaves in private, we can’t disagree with her or disapprove. We can’t take exception or offence as we can with politicians, churchmen, broadcasters, businessmen, footballers and leaders in every field, but we can’t take against the Queen. Of course there will be those who ideologically disagree with the institution, but that is different. And usually, even Republicans respect her.
We live in a world that is far removed from the Queen’s; where celebrities queue up to share their innermost secrets with millions of strangers, and where crying in public is a sign that you care. The public reaction to Diana’s death epitomised the new age. Months later, counsellors were still treating people unable to come to terms with their grief. Diana had shared her innermost secrets with them and that was part of her magic and her appeal. The public identified with her suffering and fed from it, just as she was sustained by the love of millions of strangers. But hers was not the only way of communicating.
There are many thousands of people who have been visited by the Queen after floods, famines or disasters, who will tell you that she is very far from cold and that the visit did wonders for their morale. But the perception in those touchy-feely days when Diana had such a hold on the world was that the rest of the Windsors were glacial, aloof and out of touch.
After Diana’s death the Prince of Wales rightly foresaw a backlash against the Royal Family and he kept his head below the parapet for several weeks; indeed he was terrified of raising it. When he did, it was a visit to Manchester that culminated at a Salvation Army drop-in centre in one of the most notorious estates in the city. No one knew what to expect. His office had written a speech, which he discarded, and acting on instinct, as he often did, he walked into a hall full of cameras and delivered the most touching, brave, tear-jerking tribute to the courage of his sons and to the public, who had shown such kindness in what had been an unbelievably difficult time. He won the respect and sympathy of millions.
‘I think they are handling a very difficult time with enormous courage and the greatest possible dignity,’ he said. ‘I also want to say how particularly moved and enormously comforted my children and I were, and indeed still are, by the public’s response to Diana’s death. It has been really quite remarkable and indeed in many ways overwhelming. I think, as many of you will know from experiences of family loss in your own lives, it is inevitably difficult to cope with grief at any time. But you may realise, it is even harder when the whole world is watching at the same time. But obviously the public support, and the warmth of that support, has helped us enormously. I can’t tell you how enormously grateful and touched both the boys and myself are.’
The possibility that he wasn’t the bad, uncaring father that Diana had suggested started to dawn and slowly the tide of public opinion began to turn in his favour, but not without a little help.
The public knew a great deal about Mrs Parker Bowles. The Princes knew surprisingly little. Their father had never introduced them, aware that they wouldn’t welcome it, any more than they had welcomed meeting their mother’s paramours. In the summer of 1997, however, two months before Diana’s death, he broached the subject. He sat them down together and tried to explain a bit about the situation, but the boys were very quiet and William was not at all receptive. He told Tiggy afterwards that William didn’t want to know about it, and he sensibly left it.
He had also been planning to introduce Camilla to the wider world in September that year. As patron of the National Osteoporosis Society (a disease from which her mother died a most painful death), she was hosting a fundraising party, which the Prince was planning to attend. The gradual coming out was being masterminded by Alan Kilkenny, a public relations guru, who had been behind the phenomenally successful Wishing Well Appeal for Great Ormond Street Hospital. When the Princess died all plans had to be abolished. Camilla, who was as vilified as Charles at that time, retreated to her Wiltshire home.
The monarchy had survived by a hair’s breadth. The Queen had redeemed herself with her eleventh-hour television tribute – and a long and blameless track record; Charles’s fate was still precarious, and as heir to the throne this was a problem. More of a problem was his determination, at all costs, to hang on to Camilla. Through no fault of her own, she had been the cause of monumental upset. The clear solution was to let her go, but Charles wouldn’t. She had saved him from the brink of despair, she had given him faith in himself, she was a support he couldn’t move forward without; he loved her, and he made it clear that she was ‘non-negotiable’.
At dinner one night with Camilla’s divorce lawyer, Hilary Browne-Wilkinson, not long after the Dimbleby debacle, Charles heard the name Mark Bolland for the first time. He was the Canadian-born, comprehensive-school educated, bright, powerful thirty-year-old head of the Press Complaints Commission. Hilary suggested a meeting. She thought he could be useful in helping to improve the Prince’s image. In a manoeuvre of thinly veiled subterfuge, he arrived in July 1996 as assistant to Sandy Henney, who was then Deputy Press Secretary, and swiftly rose to Assistant Pri
vate Secretary, during which process Richard Aylard, who shouldered the blame for having allowed Jonathan Dimbleby into the inner sanctum, was eased out of the top job.
Bolland became the Prince’s golden boy. He dispensed with Kilkenny and took on the task he had been hired to do, that of raising the Prince’s stock and making Mrs Parker Bowles acceptable to the British public. It was a challenging task from the beginning but after Diana’s death it was well nigh impossible. But he achieved it, and it was entirely thanks to him that Camilla is now the Prince’s wife and widely accepted as the Duchess of Cornwall. But that acceptance came at a high price.
UNEASY RELATIONSHIP
Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, did not hold back when he heard the news of her death. Speaking from his home in South Africa, he said, ‘I always believed the press would kill her in the end, but not even I could imagine that they would take such a direct hand in her death as seems to be the case.’ At that time it was thought the paparazzi were entirely responsible for the accident, and he said that the editors and proprietors of every newspaper that had paid money for intrusive pictures of his sister had ‘blood on their hands’.
Wherever the blame would finally be seen to lie, the industry took the Earl’s message to heart. After heated debate about whether a privacy law was called for, the outcome was self-regulation and a strict new code of conduct binding on every editor and publisher in Britain was drawn up by the Press Complaints Commission. Published in November 1997, it was designed to prevent all the excesses of the previous ten years. Every aspect of intrusion that the Prince and Princess had suffered was covered, and the two boys were guaranteed privacy. For example:
Privacy
i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence. A publication will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s private life without consent.
ii) The use of long lens photography to take pictures of people in private places without their consent is unacceptable. Note – private places are public or private property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Children
i) Young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion.
ii) Journalists must not interview or photograph children under the age of sixteen on subjects involving the welfare of the child or of any other child, in the absence of or without the consent of a parent or other adult who is responsible for the children.
iii) Pupils must not be approached or photographed while at school without the permission of the school authorities.
iv) Where material about the private life of a child is published, there must be justification for publication other than the fame, notoriety or position of his or her parents or guardian.
Listening devices
Journalists must not obtain or publish material obtained by using clandestine listening devices or by intercepting private telephone conversations.
In the light of evidence given to the Leveson Inquiry, which began sitting in November 2011 in the wake of the News International phone-hacking scandal, the 1997 Code of Conduct looks laughable – and perhaps it always was.
For a time it kept William and Harry out of the newspapers, even if it didn’t stop the paparazzi taking the photos. Sandy Henney has a photo of William that captures a wonderful moment; he has shot all the ducks at a funfair and is choosing what he’d like from the prizes hanging from the roof. ‘They were being watched even though it was “leave the children alone”,’ she says. ‘I had one fearful row with a particularly beastly editor in Fleet Street when he thought I was being ridiculously protective of the boys. I said, “I’ve got my responsibilities.” He said, “I’ve got a load of photographs in my safe taken by paps done at Eton.” They were still at it but because they didn’t get published we weren’t aware of it.’
But it was always going to be a balancing act. As the PCC made clear, ‘that while their rights to privacy are the same as other children, Prince William and Prince Harry are different from them because of their proximity to the throne. As a result of this, the Palace has always recognised that rigid application of the Code with regard to the young Princes – and an insistence on absolute privacy – would be unsustainable. There is legitimate public interest in news and information about the way in which the Princes are growing up, and that includes the progress of their education. In such circumstances, a complete blackout on news would be contrary to the general public interest, and would undermine the authority of the Code.’
There is a common view today that William hates the press, and given his experiences it would be surprising if he didn’t. But while he did hate the newspapers for many years, both before and after his mother’s death, it’s no longer so straightforward. He knows enough about the institution of monarchy to realise that if it is to have a future, it needs to be seen to be relevant – which means being visible. He still hates the paparazzi, but he reads everything and remembers who writes what about him (unlike his father who gave up reading anything but The Times years ago because they made him so cross). William will engage with the media in his way. He is extremely wary but utterly determined to remain in control. Control in all things is very important to William.
Sandy tells the story of the first anniversary. ‘The year after Diana died, they were going to have a service at Crathie Church and William was adamant that if the press were going to be there – and you couldn’t stop them being in the road – he didn’t want to go, and I can understand that. The Prince of Wales asked me whether I would come and talk to them both. I said, “Okay, but I’m not going to say you’ve got to go. I’ll give the pros and cons to them but they make up their own minds.” We went for a walk round Loch Nigg and I said, “Okay, guys, why don’t you want to go?” “Well, you know, the press are going to be there and we don’t want to be gawped at.”This was a year after their mum died and bloody right guys, but then you say, “Well, don’t you think it would be a bit funny if everyone else turns up for a remembrance service for your mum and you don’t?” “Well, yeah,” says William, “but I still don’t want to go.” “Okay, but this is how it’s going to be played out in the newspapers, but it’s up to you to decide. I’m not telling you either way.” And it was Harry who said, “I think we should go. We need to be there and we need to support Papa and to support everyone else. I think I’m going to go, William,” and William then said, “Yeah you’re right.” I left them and said to the Prince, “I’ve talked to them and they may well go but, if so, it’s their choice but no one will ever say they were forced into doing it.”’
They weren’t forced, but William did make one condition. He would go, he said, if Sandy would issue an announcement calling for an end to the mourning. He agreed a text with her and she read it out on his behalf during the photo call on the first day of the Michaelmas Half on 2 September, when Harry joined him as a pupil at Eton.
‘They have asked me to say that they believe their mother would want people now to move on – because she would have known that constant reminders of her death can create nothing but pain to those she left behind. They therefore hope very much that their mother and her memory will now finally be allowed to rest in peace.’
That June, William turned sixteen and the Mail on Sunday published a special supplement about him. It was friendly and intended as a celebration, but it was speculative. Among many thousands of words, it claimed that palace aides vetted William’s friends before they were invited to tea, which was nonsense. William was incensed and immediately instructed the press office to make a formal complaint on his behalf to the Press Complaints Commission. The claim, they said, was ‘inaccurate and grossly intrusive’. The complaint was upheld.
His sixteenth birthday was an obvious landmark to be celebrated, and since the media had played ball with the palace, it was time for payback. ‘You’re getting at the moment,’ explained Sandy, ‘but we’ve got to give them something.’William took
a lot of persuading. Eventually he agreed that she should come up with a list of questions to give to Peter Archer, a reporter who worked for the Press Association, which distributes news to every other media outlet. So one safe interview and some photographs. ‘It was a bit anodyne,’ she says, ‘but it filled their pages.’
Colleen Harris, who joined the press office as Sandy’s deputy, two months earlier – the first black member of the Household – was part of the persuasion process. ‘I remember sitting with him, talking about the media plans for his sixteenth birthday, and I remember thinking, I wouldn’t put up with this from my own children, I would just tell them, this is what you are doing. Why am I having to negotiate with a fifteen-year-old in this way?’ She laughs at the memory, ‘But you did; that’s William. You had to discuss it and justify why you were doing certain things and explain what was in it for him and what was in it for them, and then he would come to a decision.
‘He very much wanted to live his own life. Most children at that age don’t want all the flummery and fuss; they just want to do what they want to do and I think it was the same for him. He couldn’t quite understand why he had to put up with all this nonsense at that stage of his life – why he had to do so much at such a young age and I would argue he wasn’t doing a lot of it, “You’re only doing a little,” but to him it felt like a lot.
‘Our job at that point was to protect them, that was Sandy’s strategy, she said let’s just keep them out of the media, give them private time. It was only for landmark things and the skiing trips or when there was an incident or accident or something at school, then we would have to organise the media. It was always challenging because they never wanted to do things – and it was quite hard for us; we wanted to promote these fantastic kids and let the world see them and see how wonderfully they were growing up, and they didn’t want to.’
After those early skiing holidays in Lech with their mother, Klosters became their regular haunt. Charles knew the runs like the back of his hand and had loved the place since he first went there in the 1970s. It had been the backdrop to some colourful and delightful photographs in the past, and the deal that evolved between the press office and the press was that the family would do one photo call at the beginning of the holiday and then be left alone.