Diana_Her True Story_In Her Own Words_25th Anniversary Edition

by Andrew Morton

  That, however, proved to be easier said than done. While every other member of the royal family, most notoriously her husband, had used television to promote their causes and latterly to talk about their private lives, Diana knew that she would never be allowed that freedom by the Palace. She had enjoyed countless approaches from the world’s most prominent broadcasters, including Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey, while in 1994 she was in detailed secret discussions about an ITV documentary of her life. In the end she reluctantly decided against co-operation, not only because Prince Charles was then working with Jonathan Dimbleby for his own programme, but also because of antagonism from courtiers. ‘It was the right pitch at the wrong time,’ recalled the producer, Mike Brennan. ‘It didn’t help that the Palace continually tried to shunt the project into a siding.’

  A year on, the increasingly beleaguered Princess decided to take matters into her own hands, secretly agreeing to be interviewed by Martin Bashir, a journalist then attached to the BBC’s flagship current-affairs programme, Panorama. Ironically, Bashir was the latest in a long line of Panorama reporters who had for some time been unenthusiastically trying to cobble together a broadcast about the monarchy. This time, however, he cracked the code. Like me, he soon realized that secrecy was essential if the project was to be a success – at any moment the Palace could have killed the proposed interview with a single telephone call. Only by elaborate subterfuge would Bashir and his crew be able to record Diana’s words. They used special compact cameras so as not to attract attention when they arrived at Kensington Palace on a quiet Sunday in early November 1995. As a precaution Diana had dismissed her staff for the day, knowing that she could not trust a soul. Even when the programme had been completed, BBC executives, fearing censorship from on high, kept the Corporation’s governors in the dark. The fact that the Princess of Wales, a major international figure, and the BBC, a leading public broadcasting company, had to go to such extraordinary lengths to record an interview makes a mockery of the notion that we live in an open society. Indeed, if the programme had been the smuggled testimony of a Middle Eastern princess there would have been outraged protests about a repressive regime.

  This very British television coup, broadcast in November 1995, was a sensation, in every meaning of the word. The Princess, wearing striking black eye make-up, discussed her life, her children, her husband and her hopes for the future with remarkable frankness. Inevitably her interview retraced many aspects of Diana: Her True Story, as she talked openly about her eating disorders, her depression, her cries for help, the enemy inside the Palace, and her husband’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. In a phrase that pithily captured the problems of her relationship with Prince Charles she said: ‘There were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded.’ At the same time she admitted her own infidelity with the former Life Guards officer James Hewitt, who had previously told the story of their affair in a book. ‘Yes, I adored him, yes, I was in love with him,’ she said, adding that she had felt ‘absolutely devastated’ by his betrayal when news of the book he had co-authored reached her ears. While casting doubts on her husband’s fitness to rule, and thus his eventual accession to the throne, she spoke of her own ambitions not just for herself but for her children and the monarchy. ‘I would like to be a Queen in people’s hearts … someone’s got to go out there and love people and show it.’ The programme attracted the largest audience for any television documentary in broadcasting history.

  In the ensuing furore over her admission of infidelity and her comments about Camilla Parker Bowles, less was made of Diana’s desire to be an ambassador for Britain than she had hoped. It was a failure of emphasis she came to regret. At first, however, it seemed that before the Princess could take on any new role as a goodwill ambassador, both she and the Palace had to learn that diplomacy begins at home. The state of open warfare between the Waleses, immensely damaging to the monarchy, could not be allowed to continue, and it therefore surprised no one when, just four weeks after the interview, the Queen, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote personally to both the Prince and Princess of Wales requesting that they divorce sooner rather than later.

  The Sovereign’s intervention finally got negotiations started, both sets of lawyers working their way through labyrinthine divorce details. Late on Wednesday, 28 February 1996, a date Diana described as ‘the saddest day of my life’, the Princess announced her decision to agree to an uncontested divorce. It followed a 45-minute meeting at St James’s Palace with Prince Charles, who was dismayed when Diana took it upon herself to announce the news to the world. In a statement she said: ‘The Princess of Wales has agreed to Prince Charles’s request for a divorce. The Princess will continue to be involved in all decisions relating to the children and will remain at Kensington Palace, with offices in St James’s Palace. The Princess of Wales will retain the title and be known as Diana, Princess of Wales.’

  Her statement was one presumption too many as far as the Queen was concerned. She authorized her courtiers to issue a rare and icy public rebuke to her daughter-in-law, saying that she was ‘most interested’ to hear that the Princess of Wales had agreed to the divorce. According to Her Majesty, details concerning the settlement, the Princess’s future role and her title remained to be addressed. ‘This will take time,’ a Buckingham Palace spokesman announced ominously.

  Diana was understandably distressed, telling friends: ‘I did not want this divorce but I have agreed to it. Now they are playing ping-pong with me.’ It seemed that the sticking points with her estranged husband were her demand for offices at St James’s Palace, now his London residence – Prince Charles preferred her to be based at Kensington Palace – and her desire to have a lump-sum payment rather than staggered amounts from the Duchy of Cornwall. At the same time his camp indicated that they had no objection to Diana retaining the style ‘Her Royal Highness’. Negotiations were to continue for another four months until finally, on 15 July 1996, the Prince of Wales was granted a decree nisi. Six weeks later, on 28 August, the fairytale marriage ended with the issue of the decree absolute. While the Princess won her demands for offices at St James’s Palace and a lump-sum payment, estimated at £17 million, she was stripped of her title of honour, a move which was judged mean and spiteful by the public.

  While Diana made light of the matter, her friend Rosa Monckton echoed the views of many when she said: ‘I think it was a petty thing to have removed from her. It always seemed strange to me that the royal family said she was still very much part of their family but were not allowing the nation to recognize her as part of that family. She didn’t resent it at all because she wasn’t somebody who stood on ceremony.’ However, her eldest son consoled her with the promise that he would reinstate her title of ‘Her Royal Highness’ on the day he became king.

  Of rather more personal significance was the fact that the divorce finally allowed her to spring-clean her life. For a long time she had discussed dropping most of her huge raft of charities so as to be able to concentrate on those which really mattered to her. Even before the separation she had become dismayed that her endless round of charity dinners and balls was preventing her from meeting, and thus learning and understanding more about the people who really mattered, those suffering from Aids, cancer, leprosy, and alienation from society. It was no surprise that Diana, who had always seen herself as an outsider, chose to retain five charities – the Leprosy Mission, Centrepoint (a charity for the homeless), the National Aids Trust, the Royal Marsden NHS Trust (a cancer hospital) and the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital – charities devoted to helping those on the margins both of society and of life itself. With the exception of the English National Ballet, more than a hundred other charities, including the British Red Cross, were pruned from her portfolio.

  While some observers argued acidly that her decision was a vindictive rejoinder to the Queen’s decision to strip her of her title of honour, the real reason went
to the heart of her personality. For years she had searched for a role which allowed her to contribute to national life while fulfilling her yearning to use her unique gifts of compassion and empathy to help needy individuals, as well as experiencing for herself the most challenging aspects of charity work. By focusing on a handful of charities, Diana hoped to make a difference both to herself and to those genuinely in need of her special abilities.

  In many ways, the finality of the divorce gave Diana permission to free herself. Not only did it end her marriage, it cut her loose from the yoke of royalty, for in the years following the separation she had remained inextricably linked to Prince Charles and his family. The divorce closed that unhappy chapter in her life, the hard choices she had made during the turbulent 1990s giving her the one thing she had never dared dream of – hope. At last she could be herself; more than that, for the first time in her life she had the opportunity to explore fully the talents she had been born with.

  Yet while she hovered tantalizingly on the brink of a new life, her thoughts were often tinged with all too understandable anger and the sense of betrayal she felt at the wasted years spent suffocating inside a miserable marriage and a stultifying system.

  Since her separation she had slowly, cautiously – perhaps even unconsciously – performed a kind of striptease, unpeeling the veils of convention which had surrounded her. During the 1980s she had been defined only by her fashions, seen merely as a glamorous clothes horse, a royal adjunct, a wife and mother. Since the separation, however, her regal wardrobe, which defined her royal mystique, had been left in the closet. Indeed, her decision, inspired by Prince William, to hold an auction of her royal wardrobe for Aids charities in New York in the summer of 1997 was a very public farewell to that old life. She no longer wanted to be seen as just a beautiful model for expensive clothes. Moreover, during her sensational days as a semi-detached royal she had deliberately stripped away other trappings of monarchy, her servants, her ladies-in-waiting, her limousines and, most controversially, her bodyguards. The casting off of her royal title was one giant step on that journey.

  She had spent much time grieving over a failed relationship, lost hopes and broken ambitions. She had once said: ‘I had so many dreams as a young girl. I hoped for a husband to look after me, he would be a father figure to me, he would support me, encourage me, say “Well done” or “That wasn’t good enough.” I didn’t get any of that. I couldn’t believe it.’

  The days of betrayal, anguish and hurt lay in the past. Now it was time to move on, to make the most of her position and her personality. Opportunity beckoned. As the Princess admitted: ‘I have learned much over the last years. From now on I am going to own myself and be true to myself. I no longer want to live someone else’s idea of what and who I should be.

  ‘I am going to be me.’

  12

  ‘Tell Me Yes’

  Like so many crucial events in Diana’s life, it began by chance. A casual conversation with her divorce solicitor Maggie Rae resulted in a secret meeting with the then Opposition leader, Tony Blair, and finally the resolution of the issue which had dominated her thinking for months, namely her determination to become a humanitarian ambassador.

  It was an ambition which had burned within her long before she publicly gave vent to her wishes during her only television interview in 1995. Her long-standing commitment to finding a role as a princess for the world rather than the Princess of Wales said much about her feelings towards duty to the nation, as well as graphically illustrating her development as a woman and, perhaps surprisingly, as a feminist. During her early years in public life she was happy to conform to society’s – and the monarchy’s – expectations of a princess. Essentially royal men are judged by what they say, royal women by how they look. As she blossomed into a natural beauty, Diana was defined by her appearance, not by her achievements. For a long time she accepted the role of the docile helpmate to her husband. She was praised for simply existing. For being, not for doing. As one of her friends remarked: ‘She was only expected by the royal system to be a clothes horse and an obedient wife.’

  The separation in December 1992 changed everything. Unlike Prince Charles, whose constitutional position as the future king is clearly defined, the Princess had no preordained role, no lodestar to guide her. Semi-detached from the monarchy, for the first time in her adult life she was flying solo and was aware that it would be a tricky ride. ‘I will make mistakes,’ she said, ‘but that will not stop me from doing what I feel is right.’

  It was a process which embraced a liberation from her royal past as well as a recognition of her own abilities and limitations.

  One of the many perplexing contradictions about Diana was that while she did not value herself highly as an individual she did understand her worth on the public stage, seeing that her standing in society, both at home and abroad, gave her a unique springboard to support the causes and issues she cherished. Yet she was deeply disenchanted with the protocol, the flummery and the artifice which inevitably surrounded royalty. Her challenge was to reinvent her public persona, to discard the robes of her office while retaining her authority. As a close friend noted: ‘She felt she was being held back by the system and unable to fulfil her true potential.’

  Essentially the fount of her discontent lay in the manner and style of the British monarchy, the brittle formality and mind-numbing irrelevance of so much of royal life. The Princess felt instinctively that if she could change the style of her public life she could enhance the substance of her contribution to the nation. ‘I want to help the man in the street,’ she once said, a sentiment which reflected the fact that in her heart she was a woman happier with the people rather than with her people. ‘I feel much closer to people at the bottom than to people at the top and they [the royal family] don’t forgive me for it,’ she said shortly before her death.

  Her skill in public life was the intuitive ability to use her office to promote her causes, while her inherent nature drew her to the dying, diseased and dispossessed. It was a potent combination. ‘I will never complain again,’ she said as she emerged from a one-room airless hut in one mountain village in Nepal during her first solo overseas visit in 1993.

  She aspired towards a more informal, relaxed and approachable royal style; ‘This needs a woman’s touch’, was her common refrain. Her view in essence was that so many issues and problems in a male-dominated world derive from the aggressive, secretive and often insensitive masculine ego. Problems could be more effectively addressed, she felt, when female qualities, as she saw them, of intuition, compassion, compromise and harmony were added to the equation. Her thinking, influenced by New Age advisers, was also rooted in her jaded view of the monarchy as a male-dominated institution, and in her undoubted cynicism towards the opposite sex following the failure of her marriage, views reinforced by her frequent private visits to the refuges for battered women.

  Her interest in women’s issues was matched by her growing awareness that she could play a genuine solo role on her own upon the world stage. It was exciting and exhilarating. Her work for Aids and leprosy proved that she could cut across national boundaries while her courage in admitting her eating disorders had prompted thousands of sufferers around the world to seek help. Many sent her letters of gratitude for helping them face problems in their own lives, a response which she found as embarrassing as it was pleasing.

  It was against this developing philosophy that the Princess discussed with the Prime Minister, John Major, and Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, her ideas for a future role. She wanted a roving ambassadorial position with a humanitarian rather than political emphasis. Diana’s thinking was that so many conflicts arise from stalled communications between warring parties. Her solution was that the female touch can pour oil on troubled waters and help unblock choked lines of discussion. Simplistic certainly, grandiose possibly, but the notion of the Princess acting as a humanitarian ambassador did win a constructive response from the Prime Minister,
who referred the proposal to Buckingham Palace for their consideration. They politely informed Downing Street that this was the kind of role tailor-made for the Prince of Wales. ‘We want the heir not her’, was the all too familiar cry from the ‘men in grey’.

  Little wonder, then, that when Diana watched Nigel Short play Garry Kasparov in the World Chess Championship she saw in the game a parable of her own position. ‘I adored the game, it’s my life. I’m just a pawn pushed around by the powers that be,’ she observed. Even though she felt that her ambitions were thwarted by the British Establishment, her work did not go unnoticed elsewhere. In December 1996 Dr Henry Kissinger presented her with the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award at a ceremony in New York, the veteran diplomat acknowledging her strength and ‘luminous personality’ and praising the way she had ‘aligned herself with the ill, the suffering and the downtrodden’.

  Lauded abroad but sidelined at home, Diana, like others before her, saw herself as a prophet without honour in her own country. This frustration had earlier spilled over in her famous Panorama television interview when she appealed to the public over the heads of the Palace. She said plaintively: ‘I’d like to be an ambassador for this country. As I have all this media interest, let’s not just sit in this country and be battered by it. Let’s take them, these people, out to represent this country and the good qualities of it abroad … I’ve been in a privileged position for 15 years. I’ve got tremendous knowledge about people and how to communicate and I want to use it.’