Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words: 25th Anniversary Edition

by Andrew Morton

  COURTSHIP

  It sort of built up from there, then the press seized upon it. Then that became simply unbearable in our flat, but my three girls were wonderful, star performers; loyalty beyond belief. The feeling [in Sandringham] was I wish Prince Charles would hurry up and get on with it. The Queen was fed up. He wrote to me from Klosters and then he rang me up and said: ‘I’ve got something very important to ask you.’ An instinct in a female tells you what it is. I sat up all night with my girls, saying: ‘Christ, what am I going to do?’

  By that time I’d realized there was somebody else around. I’d been staying at Bolehyde [Manor] with the Parker Bowleses an awful lot and I couldn’t understand why she [Camilla] kept saying to me: ‘Don’t push him into doing this, don’t do that.’ She knew so much about what he was doing privately and about what we were doing privately … if we were going to stay at Broadlands, I couldn’t understand it. Eventually I worked it all out and found the proof of the pudding and people were willing to talk to me.

  …he said: ‘Will you marry me?’ and I laughed. I remember thinking: ‘This is a joke’, and I said: ‘Yeah, OK’, and laughed.

  Anyway, next day I went to Windsor and I arrived about 5 o’clock and he sat me down and said: ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ But there was never anything tactile about him. It was extraordinary, but I didn’t have anything to go by because I had never had a boyfriend. I’d always kept them away, thought they were all trouble – and I couldn’t handle it emotionally, I was very screwed up, I thought. Anyway, so he said: ‘Will you marry me?’ and I laughed. I remember thinking: ‘This is a joke’, and I said: ‘Yeah, OK’, and laughed. He was deadly serious. He said: ‘You do realize that one day you will be Queen.’ And a voice said to me inside: ‘You won’t be Queen but you’ll have a tough role.’ So I thought: ‘OK’, so I said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘I love you so much, I love you so much.’ He said: ‘Whatever love means.’ He said it then. So I thought that was great! I thought he meant that! And so he ran upstairs and rang his mother.

  In my immaturity, which was enormous, I thought that he was very much in love with me, which he was, but he always had a sort of besotted look about him, looking back at it, but it wasn’t the genuine sort. ‘Who was this girl who was so different?’ But he couldn’t understand it because his immaturity was quite big in that department too. For me it was like a call of duty, really – to go and work with the people.

  I came back [to the flat] and sat on my bed. ‘Girls, guess what?’ They said: ‘He asked you. What did you say?’ ‘Yes please.’ They screamed and howled and we went for a drive around London with our secret. I rang my parents the next morning. Daddy was thrilled. ‘How wonderful.’ Mummy was thrilled. I remember telling my brother and he said: ‘Who to?’

  We fell in love gradually. It wasn’t really dramatic. One blink and it would have gone.

  I then went away two days later to Australia for three weeks to sort of settle down and to organize lists and things with my mother. That was a complete disaster because I pined for him but he never rang me up. I thought that was very strange and whenever I rang him he was out and he never rang me back. I thought: ‘OK.’ I was just being generous – ‘He is being very busy, this, that and the other.’ I come back from Australia, someone knocks on my door – someone from his office with a bunch of flowers and I knew that they hadn’t come from Charles because there was no note. It was just somebody being very tactful in the office.

  We fell in love gradually. It wasn’t really dramatic. One blink and it would have gone.

  PRESS HARASSMENT

  Then it all started to build up, sort of like the press were being unbearable following my every move. I understood they had a job, but people did not understand they had binoculars on me the whole time. They hired the opposite flat in Old Brompton Road, which was a library which looked into my bedroom, and it wasn’t fair on the girls. I couldn’t put the telephone off the hook in case any of their family were ill in the night. The papers used to ring me up at 2am – they were just putting out another story – ‘Could I confirm it or deny it?’

  [On one occasion at Balmoral] I saw [the press], so I said to Charles: ‘I must get out of the way, because you don’t need any aggravation.’ So I went up, up, up, up, up to the bank and sat behind a tree for a good half an hour while Charles was obviously complaining and fishing a lot. Instead of showing my face, I thought I’d bring my powder compact out [to take a look at them].

  I failed once [her driving test] and then got it second time. With the media I always made sure that I was going through just as the light was turning red, so they were stuck. Sometimes I cycled. They’d chase me everywhere. We’re talking about thirty of them – not two. Granny said: ‘Would you like to borrow my car for a weekend. They keep following your metro.’ So I borrowed her silver Golf.

  I had to get out of Coleherne Court once to go to stay with him [Prince Charles] at Broadlands. So we took my sheets off the bed and I got out of the kitchen window, which is on the side street, with a suitcase. I did it that way round.

  I was constantly polite, constantly civil. I was never rude. I never shouted. I cried like a baby to the four walls. I just couldn’t cope with it. I cried because I got no support from Charles and no support from the Palace press office. They just said: ‘You’re on your own’, so I thought: ‘Fine.’

  [Prince Charles] wasn’t at all supportive. Whenever he rang me up he said: ‘Poor Camilla Parker Bowles. I’ve had her on the telephone tonight and she says there’s lots of press at Bolehyde. She’s having a very rough time.’ I never complained about the press to him because I didn’t think it was my position to do so. I asked him: ‘How many press are out there?’ He said: ‘At least four.’ I thought: ‘My God, there’s 34 here!’ and I never told him.

  ... my policeman the night before the engagement said to me: ‘I just want you to know that this is your last night of freedom ever in the rest of your life, so make the most of it.’

  I was able to recognize an inner determination to survive. Anyway, thank God, it got announced [the engagement] and before I knew what happened, I was in Clarence House [the London residence of the Queen Mother]. Nobody there to welcome me. It was like going into a hotel. Then everyone said: ‘Why are you at Clarence House?’ and I said I was told that I was expected to be at Clarence House. And I’d left my flat for the last time and suddenly I had a policeman. And my policeman the night before the engagement said to me: ‘I just want you to know that this is your last night of freedom ever in the rest of your life, so make the most of it.’ It was like a sword went in my heart. I thought: ‘God’, then I sort of giggled like an immature girl.

  It was about three days before we went to the Palace [from Clarence House]. At Clarence House I remember being woken in the morning by a very sweet elderly lady who brought in all the papers about the engagement and put them on my bed.

  MARRYING INTO THE ROYAL FAMILY

  My grandma [Ruth, the late Lady Fermoy] always said to me: ‘Darling, you must understand that their sense of humour and their lifestyle are different and I don’t think it will suit you.’

  THE ATTRACTIONS OF BECOMING A PRINCESS

  You see, I had a very good lifestyle myself. I was Lady Diana Spencer. I was living in a big house, I had my own money. So it wasn’t as though I was going into anything different.

  CHOOSING THE ENGAGEMENT RING

  A briefcase comes along on the pretext that [Prince] Andrew is getting a signet ring for his 21st birthday and along come these sapphires. I mean nuggets! I suppose I chose it, we all chipped in. The Queen paid for it.

  THAT BLACK DRESS

  I remember my first [royal] engagement so well. So excited. I got this black dress from the Emanuels and I thought it was OK because girls my age wore this dress. I hadn’t appreciated that I was now seen as a royal lady, although I’d only got a ring on my finger as opposed to two rings. I remember walking into my husband-to-be’s study, and him saying: ‘Yo
u’re not going in that dress, are you?’ I replied: ‘Yes, I am.’ And he said: ‘It’s black! But only people in mourning wear black!’ And I said: ‘Yes, but I’m not part of your family yet.’

  Black to me was the smartest colour you could possibly have at the age of 19. It was a real grown-up dress. I was quite big-chested then and they all got frightfully excited. I learned a lesson that night. I remember meeting Princess Grace and how wonderful and serene she was but there was troubled water under her, I saw that.

  It was a horrendous occasion. I didn’t know whether to go out of the door first. I didn’t know whether your handbag should be in your left hand or your right hand. I was terrified really – at the time everything was all over the place. I remember that evening so well. I was terrified – nearly sick.

  ENGAGEMENT

  It happened in the nursery at Windsor. I missed my girls so much I wanted to go back there and sit and giggle like we used to and borrow clothes and chat about silly things, just being in my safe shell again. One day you’ve got the King and Queen of Sweden coming to give you their wedding present of four brass candlesticks, the next minute you get the President of Somewhere Else coming to see. I was just pushed into the fire but I have to say my upbringing was able to handle that. It wasn’t as though I was picked out like My Fair Lady and told to get on with it. I did know how to react.

  MEETING CAMILLA

  [I met her] very early on. I was introduced to the circle, but I was a threat. I was a very young girl but I was a threat.

  I once heard him on the telephone [to Camilla] in his bath on his hand-held set saying: ‘Whatever happens, I will always love you.’

  We always had discussions about Camilla though. I once heard him on the telephone in his bath on his hand-held set saying: ‘Whatever happens, I will always love you.’ I told him afterwards that I had listened at the door and we had a filthy row.

  When I arrived at Clarence House there was a letter on my bed from Camilla, dated two days previously, saying: ‘Such exciting news about the engagement. Do let’s have lunch soon when the Prince of Wales goes to Australia and New Zealand. He’s going to be away for three weeks. I’d love to see the ring, lots of love, Camilla’ and that was ‘Wow!’ So I organized lunch. We had lunch and, bearing in mind that I was so immature, I didn’t know about jealousy or depressions or anything like that. I had such a wonderful existence being a kindergarten teacher – you didn’t suffer from anything like that, you got tired but that was it. There was no one around to give you grief. So we had lunch. Very tricky indeed. She said: ‘You are not going to hunt are you?’ I said: ‘On what?’ She said: ‘Horse. You are not going to hunt when you go and live at Highgrove are you?’ I said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘I just wanted to know’, and I thought as far as she was concerned that was her communication route. Still too immature to understand all the messages coming my way.

  Anyway, somebody in his office told me that my husband had had a bracelet made for her which she wears to this day. It’s a gold chain bracelet with a blue enamel disc. It’s got ‘G and F’ entwined in it, ‘Gladys’ and ‘Fred’ – they were their nicknames. I walked into this man’s office one day and said: ‘Oh, what’s in that parcel?’ He said: ‘Oh, you shouldn’t look at that.’ I said: ‘Well, I’m going to look at it.’ I opened it and there was a bracelet and I said: ‘I know where this is going.’ I was devastated. This was about two weeks before we got married. He said: ‘Well, he’s going to give it to her tonight.’ So rage, rage, rage! ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’ But, no, he [Prince Charles] cut me absolutely dead. It’s as if he had made his decision, and if it wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to work. He’d found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb, and in a way he was obsessed with me. But it was hot and cold, hot and cold. You never knew what mood it was going to be, up and down, up and down.

  He took the bracelet, lunchtime on Monday, we got married on the Wednesday. I went to his policeman who was back in the office and said: ‘John, where’s Prince Charles?’ and he said: ‘Oh, he’s gone out for lunch.’ So I said: ‘Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with him?’ ‘Oh, I’m going to collect him later.’

  So I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there and said: ‘I can’t marry him, I can’t do this, this is absolutely unbelievable.’ They were wonderful and said: ‘Well, bad luck, Duch, your face is on the tea-towels so you’re too late to chicken out.’ So we made light of it.

  [On impressions of Buckingham Palace] I couldn’t believe how cold everyone was, how I thought one thing but actually another thing was going on. The lies and the deceit. The first thing that hit me was my husband sending Camilla Parker Bowles flowers when she had meningitis. ‘To Gladys from Fred.’

  On our honeymoon, for instance, we were opening our diaries to discuss various things. Out come two pictures of Camilla.

  I never dealt with that side of things. I just said to him: ‘You must always be honest with me.’ On our honeymoon, for instance, we were opening our diaries to discuss various things. Out come two pictures of Camilla. On our honeymoon we have our white-tie dinner for President Sadat [of Egypt]. Cufflinks arrive on his wrists – two ‘C’s entwined like the Chanel ‘C’s. Got it in one; knew exactly. ‘Camilla gave you those didn’t she?’ He said: ‘Yes, so what’s wrong? They’re a present from a friend.’ And, boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy – and it’s such a good idea the two ‘C’s but it wasn’t that clever in some ways.

  I was the only one here [when planning the wedding] because he had pushed off to Australia and New Zealand on tour, and you may recall, of course, the picture of me sobbing in a red coat when he went off in the aeroplane. It had nothing to do with him going. The most awful thing had happened before he went. I was in his study talking to him, when the telephone rang. It was Camilla, just before he was going for five weeks. I thought: ‘Shall I be nice or shall I just sit here?’ So I thought I’d be nice so I left them to it. It just broke my heart that.

  HIGHGROVE HOUSE

  He said he wanted to be in the Duchy [of Cornwall] vicinity but it’s only 11 miles from her house. He chose the house and I came along afterwards. First went there after he bought it. He had painted all the walls white. He wanted me to do it up even though we were not engaged. I thought it was very improper but he liked my taste.

  THE HIGHGROVE SET

  [The Highgrove Set] appeared at various events, like the opera and going to Annabel’s [nightclub] afterwards. The circuit then was Jeremy and Sue Phipps, Charlie and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles, Emilie and Hugh van Cutsem, Simon and Annabel Elliot – Camilla’s sister and brother-in-law. They were the big speakers. Then there were some on the outside, too.

  I started to think: ‘Gosh, they talk rather strangely to me.’ I was very normal in the sense that I said what I thought because nobody ever told me to shut up. They were all oiling up, basically, kissing his feet, and I thought it was so bad for an individual to receive all that.

  Now the circle has broadened. Other people have come in and they’re not so much of a threat, they’re actually terribly nice to me. I get on very well with them. But the ones who were there at the beginning are the ones that rumble a lot.

  Emilie van Cutsem used to be my best friend. She told me about Camilla. She’s very formidable, very outspoken.

  DECORATING TWO NEW HOMES

  [Dudley Poplak] did up my mother’s house ten years previously and had always been a friend of my mother’s, so I said to her: ‘What do you think?’ She said: ‘Well, use him, he’s been marvellous, very loyal.’ I chose the decorations and had a free hand to do that.

  CHOOSING ST PAUL’S OR WESTMINSTER ABBEY

  [Prince] Charles said that people could see more and the acoustics were better [at St Paul’s]. Great debate in the family about it, it had never happened before. ‘I want it that way,’ Charles said. Great confusion.

  WEDDING PRESENTS

  Charles and I went around
the General Trading Company [a fashionable gift store frequented by the Establishment]. Looking back on it was quite a funny thing to do. And a lot of organizations offered us things, and Dudley [Poplak] went to see if the gifts were practical or if we could change them for something else. He was marvellous.

  THE WEDDING

  Great anticipation. Happiness because the crowds buoyed you up – I don’t think I was happy. We got married on Wednesday and on the Monday we had gone to St Paul’s for our last rehearsal and that’s when the camera lights were on full and a sense of what the day was going to be. And I sobbed my eyes out. Absolutely collapsed and it was collapsing because of all sorts of things. The Camilla thing rearing its head the whole way through our engagement and I was desperately trying to be mature about the situation but I didn’t have the foundations to do it and I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.

  I remember my husband being very tired – both of us were quite tired. Big day. He sent me a very nice signet ring the night before to Clarence House, with the Prince of Wales feathers on and a very nice card that said:

  ‘I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ’em in the eye and knock ’em dead.’

  I had a very bad fit of bulimia the night before. I ate everything I could possibly find which amused my sister [Jane] because she was staying at Clarence House with me and nobody understood what was going on there. It was very hush-hush. I was sick as a parrot that night. It was such an indication of what was going on.

  [Charles wrote:] ‘I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ’em in the eye and knock ’em dead.’

  I was very calm the next morning when we were getting up at Clarence House. Must have been awake about 5am. Interesting – they put me in a bedroom overlooking the Mall, which meant I didn’t get any sleep. I was very, very calm, deathly calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and couldn’t do anything about it. My last night of freedom with Jane at Clarence House.