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

by Andrew Morton

  In February, when Charles and Diana flew to Windermere Island in the Bahamas, they were followed by representatives from two tabloid newspapers. The Princess, then five months pregnant, was photographed running through the surf in a bikini. She and Charles were furious at the publication of the pictures while the Palace, reflecting their outrage, remarked that it was one of ‘the blackest days in British journalism’. The honeymoon between the press, the Princess and the Palace was effectively over.

  This daily media obsession with Diana further burdened her already overstretched mental and physical resources. The bulimia, the morning sickness, her collapsing marriage and her jealousy of Camilla conspired to make her life intolerable. Media interest in the forthcoming birth was just too much to bear. She decided to have the labour induced even though her gynaecologist, George Pinker, has been quoted as saying: ‘Birth is a natural process and should be treated as such.’ While she was well aware of her mother’s trauma following the birth of her brother John, her instincts told her that the baby was well. ‘It’s well cooked,’ she told a friend before she and Prince Charles travelled to the private Lindo wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London.

  Her labour was, like her pregnancy, seemingly interminable and difficult. Diana was continually sick and at one point Mr Pinker and his fellow doctors considered performing an emergency Caesarean operation. During her labour Diana’s temperature soared dramatically, which in turn gave rise to concern for the baby’s health. In the end Diana, who had an epidural injection in the base of her spine, was able to give birth thanks to her own efforts, without resorting to forceps or an operation.

  Joy was unconfined. At 9.03pm on 21 June 1982 Diana produced the son and heir which was cause for national rejoicing. When the Queen came to visit her grandchild the following day her comment was typical. As she looked at the tiny bundle she said drily: ‘Thank goodness he hasn’t got ears like his father.’ The second in line to the throne was still known officially as ‘Baby Wales’ and it took the couple several days of discussion before they arrived at a name. Prince Charles admitted as much: ‘We’ve thought of one or two. There’s a bit of an argument about it, but we’ll find one eventually.’ Charles wanted to call his first son ‘Arthur’ and his second ‘Albert’, after Queen Victoria’s consort. William and Harry were Diana’s choices while her husband’s preferences were used in their children’s middle names.

  When the time came, she was similarly firm about the boys’ schooling. Prince Charles argued that they should be brought up initially by Mabel Anderson, his childhood nanny, and then a governess employed to educate the boys for the first few years in the privacy of Kensington Palace. This was the way Prince Charles had been reared and he wanted his boys to follow suit. Diana suggested that her children should go to school with other youngsters. To her it was essential that her children grew up in the outside world and not be hidden away in the artificial environment of a royal palace.

  Within the confines of the royal schedule Diana attempted to bring up her children as normally as possible. Her own childhood was evidence enough of the emotional harm which can be wrought when a child is passed from one parental figure to another. She was determined that her children would never be deprived of the cuddles and kisses that she and her brother Charles craved when they were young. While Barbara Barnes, the nanny to Lord and Lady Glenconner’s children, was employed it was made clear that Diana would be intimately involved in her children’s upbringing. Initially she breastfed the boys, a subject she discussed endlessly with her sister Sarah.

  For a time the joy of motherhood overcame her eating disorder. Carolyn Bartholomew who visited her at Kensington Palace three days after William was born recalled: ‘She was thrilled with both herself and the baby. There was a contentment about her.’ The mood was infectious. For a time Charles surprised his friends by his enthusiasm for the nursery routine. ‘I was hoping to do some digging,’ he told Harold Haywood, secretary of the Prince’s Trust one Friday evening. ‘But the ground’s so hard that I can’t get the spade in. So I expect I’ll be nappy changing instead.’ As William grew, stories filtered out about the Prince joining his son in the bath, of William flushing his shoes down the lavatory or of Charles cutting short engagements to be with his family.

  There were darker tales too: that Diana was suffering from anorexia; that Prince Charles was concerned about her health; that she was beginning to exert too much influence on his friends and their staff. In reality, the Princess was suffering both from bulimia and a severe case of postnatal depression. The events of the previous year had left her mentally drained while she was physically exhausted because of her chronic illness.

  The birth of William and the consequent psychological reaction triggered off the black feelings she harboured about her husband’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. There were tears and panicked telephone calls when he didn’t arrive home on time, nights without sleep when he was away. A friend clearly recalls the Princess telephoning him in tears. Diana had accidentally overheard her husband talking on a mobile telephone while having a bath. She was deeply upset when she heard him say: ‘Whatever happens, I will always love you.’

  She was weepy and nervy, anxious about her baby – ‘Is he all right Barbara?’ she would ask her new nanny – while neglecting herself. It was a desperately lonely time. Her family and friends were now at the margins of her new life. At the same time she knew that the royal family perceived her not only as a problem but also as a threat. They were deeply concerned about Prince Charles’s decision to give up shooting as well as his inclination towards vegetarianism. As the royal family have large estates in Scotland and Norfolk where hunting, shooting and fishing are an integral part of land management, they were very worried about the future. Diana was blamed for her husband’s change of heart. It was a woeful misreading of her position.

  Diana felt that she was in no position to influence her husband’s behaviour. Changes in his wardrobe were one thing, radical alterations in the traditional country code were quite another. In fact, Charles’s highly publicized conversion to vegetarianism can more properly be laid at the door of his former bodyguard, Paul Officer, who frequently argued with him during long car journeys about the virtues of a non-meat diet.

  She was also beginning to see the lie of the land with her in-laws. During a ferocious argument with Diana, Charles made clear the royal family’s position. He told her in no uncertain terms that his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, had agreed that if, after five years, his marriage was not working he could go back to his bachelor habits. Whether those sentiments, uttered in the heat of the moment, were true or not was beside the point. They had the effect of placing Diana on her guard in her every dealing with her in-laws.

  At Balmoral her mood grew even more depressed. The weather hardly lifted her spirits. It rained continually and when the Princess was photographed leaving the castle en route to London the media jumped to the conclusion that she was bored with the Queen’s Highland retreat and wanted to go shopping. In fact, she returned to Kensington Palace for professional treatment for her chronic depression. Over a period of time she was seen by a number of psychotherapists and psychologists who adopted differing approaches to her varied problems. Some suggested drugs, as they had when she was pregnant with William, others tried to explore her psyche.

  One of the first to treat her was the noted Jungian psychotherapist the late Dr Alan McGlashan, a friend of Laurens van der Post, who had consulting rooms conveniently near to Kensington Palace. He was intrigued to analyse her dreams and encouraged her to write them down before he discussed the hidden messages they may have contained. She later said that she was not convinced by this form of treatment. As a result he discontinued his visits. However, his involvement with the royal family did not end there and he regularly discussed many confidential matters with Prince Charles who would often visit his practice near Sloane Street.

  Another doctor, David Mitchell, was more concer
ned to discuss and analyse Diana’s conversations with her husband. He came to see her every evening and asked her to recount the events of that day. She admitted frankly that their dialogues consisted more of tears than words. There were other professional counsellors who saw the Princess. While they had their own ideas and theories, Diana did not feel that any of them came close to understanding the true nature of the turmoil in her heart and mind.

  On 11 November, Diana’s doctor, Michael Linnett, mentioned his concern about her health to her former West Heath pianist, Lily Snipp. She recorded in her diaries: ‘Diana looked very beautiful and very thin. (Her doctor wants her to increase her weight – she has no appetite.) I enquired after Prince William – he slept 13 hours last night! She said that she and Charles are besotted parents and their son is wonderful.’

  With savage irony, when Diana was in the depths of despair, the tide of publicity turned against her. She was no longer the fairytale Princess but the royal shopaholic who lavished a fortune on an endless array of new outfits. It was Diana who was held responsible for the steady stream of royal staff who had left their service during the previous 18 months and it was the Princess who was accused of forcing Charles to abandon his friends, change his eating habits and his wardrobe. Even the Queen’s press secretary had described their relationship as ‘rumbustious’. At a time when dark thoughts of suicide continually crossed her mind, gossip columnist Nigel Dempster described her as ‘a fiend and a monster’. While it was an appalling parody of the truth, Diana took the criticism very much to heart.

  Later her brother unwittingly reinforced the impression that she hired and fired staff when he said: ‘In a quiet way she has weeded out a lot of the hangers-on who surrounded Charles.’ While he was referring to the Prince’s fawning friends, it was interpreted as a comment on the high staff turnover at Kensington Palace and Highgrove.

  In reality, Diana was struggling to keep her head above water, let alone undertake a radical management restructuring programme. Yet she shouldered the blame for what the media gleefully called: ‘Malice at the Palace’, describing the Princess as ‘the mouse that roared’. In a moment of exasperation she told James Whitaker: ‘I want you to understand that I am not responsible for any sackings. I don’t just sack people.’ Her outburst came following the resignation of Edward Adeane, the Prince’s private secretary and a member of the family who had helped to guide the monarchy since the days of George V.

  In truth, Diana got on rather well with Adeane, who introduced her to many of the women she accepted as her ladies-in-waiting while she was an enthusiastic matchmaker, continually trying to pair off the difficult bachelor with unattached ladies. When the Prince’s devoted valet, Stephen Barry, who later died of Aids, resigned, the blame was laid at Diana’s door. She had anticipated as much when he talked to her about leaving as they watched the sun go down over the Mediterranean during the honeymoon cruise. He, like the Prince’s detective John McLean and several other staff who served the Prince during his bachelorhood, knew that it was time to leave once he was safely married. So it proved.

  As she endeavoured to come to terms with the realities of her marriage and royal life, there were moments in those early years when Diana sensed that she actually could cope and could make a positive contribution to the royal family and the wider nation. Those first glimmerings occurred in tragic circumstances. When Princess Grace of Monaco died in a motor car accident in September 1982, Diana was determined to attend her funeral. She felt a debt of gratitude to the woman who had been so kind to her during that first traumatic public engagement 18 months before as well as an empathy with someone who, like her, had come into the royal world from the outside. Initially she discussed her desire to go to the funeral with her husband. He was doubtful and told her that she would have to ask the Queen’s private secretary for approval. She sent him a memo – the usual form of royal communication – but he replied negatively, arguing that it wasn’t possible as she had only been doing the job for a short time. Diana felt so strongly about the issue that, for once, she would not take no for an answer. This time she wrote directly to the Queen, who raised no objections to the request. It was her first solo foreign trip representing the royal family and she returned home to praise from the public for her dignified manner at the highly charged and at times mawkish funeral service.

  Other challenges were on the horizon. Prince William was still at the crawling stage when they were invited to visit Australia by the government. There was much controversy in the media about how Diana had defied the Queen to take Prince William on her first major overseas visit. In fact it was the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, who was instrumental in this decision. He wrote to the royal couple saying that he appreciated the problems facing a young family and invited them to bring the Prince along as well. Until that moment they were reconciled to leaving him behind for the proposed four-week tour. Fraser’s considerate gesture enabled them to lengthen the visit to include a two-week trip to New Zealand. The Queen’s permission was never requested.

  During the visit William stayed at Woomargama, a 4,000-acre sheep station in New South Wales, with nanny Barbara Barnes and assorted security personnel. While his parents could only be with him during the occasional break in a hectic schedule, at least Diana knew that he was under the same skies. His presence in the country was a useful talking point during their endless walkabouts and Diana in particular delighted in chatting about his progress.

  That visit was a test of endurance for Diana. There have been few other occasions since then of such remorseless enthusiasm. In a country of 17 million people, around one million actually travelled to see the Prince and Princess of Wales as they journeyed from city to city. At times the welcome bordered on frenzy. In Brisbane where 300,000 people packed together in the city centre, hysteria ran as high as the baking 95-degree temperature. There were many moments when an unexpected surge in the crowd could have resulted in catastrophe. No one in the royal entourage, including the Prince of Wales, had ever experienced this kind of adulation.

  Those first few days were traumatic. Diana was jet-lagged, anxious and sick with bulimia. After her first engagement at the Alice Springs School of the Air, she and her lady-in-waiting, Anne Beckwith-Smith, consoled each other. Behind closed doors Diana cried her eyes out with nervous exhaustion. She wanted William; she wanted to go home; she wanted to be anywhere but Alice Springs. Even Anne, a mature, practical 29-year-old, was devastated. That first week was an ordeal. She had been thrown in at the deep end and it was a question of sink or swim. Diana drew deeply on her inner resolve and managed to keep going.

  While Diana looked to her husband for a lead and guidance, the way the press and public reacted to the royal couple merely served to drive a wedge between them. As in Wales, the crowds complained when Prince Charles went over to their side of the street during a walkabout. Press coverage focused on the Princess; Charles was confined to a walk-on role. It was the same later that year when they visited Canada for three weeks. As a former member of his Household explained: ‘He never expected this kind of reaction. After all, he was the Prince of Wales. When he got out of the car people would groan. It hurt his pride and inevitably he became jealous. In the end it was rather like working for two pop stars. It was all very sad and is one reason why now they do everything separately.’

  In public Charles accepted the revised status quo with good grace; in private he blamed Diana. Naturally she pointed out that she never sought this adulation, quite the opposite, and was frankly horrified by media attention. Indeed, for a woman suffering from a condition directly related to self-image, her smiling face on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine did little to help.

  Ultimately, the success of that gruelling tour marked a turning point in her royal life. She went out a girl, she returned home a woman. It was nothing like the transformation she would undergo a few years later but it signalled the slow resurrection of her inner spirit. For a long time she had been out o
f control, unable to cope with the everyday demands of her new royal role. Now she had developed a self-assurance and experience which allowed her to perform on the public stage. There were still tears and traumas but the worst was over. She gradually started to pick up the threads of her life. For a long time she had not been able to face many of her friends. Confined to a prison, she knew that she would find it unbearable to hear the news from her former circle. In their terms, talk about their holidays, dinner parties and new jobs seemed mundane compared to her new status as an international superstar. But for Diana this chatter signified freedom, a freedom she could no longer enjoy.

  At the same time Diana did not want her friends to see her in such a wretched, unhappy state. She was rather like an injured animal, wanting to lick her wounds in peace and privacy. Following her tours of Australia and Canada she felt enough confidence to renew her friendships and wrote a number of letters asking how everyone was and what they were doing. One was to Adam Russell, whom she arranged to meet at an Italian restaurant in Pimlico.

  The woman he saw was very different from the happy, mischievous girl he knew from the ski slopes. More confident certainly but beneath the banter Diana was a very lonely and unhappy young woman. ‘She was really feeling the bars of the cage chafing. At that time she hadn’t come to terms with them,’ he recalled.