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

by Andrew Morton

  While the complete absence of support and the atmosphere of disapproval and criticism undermined Diana’s self-confidence, the problem was reinforced by society’s expectations of the royal family. 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 Diana accepted the role of the docile helpmate to her crusading, articulate husband. Her astrologer Felix Lyle observed: ‘One of the worst things that happened to her was that she was put on a pedestal which didn’t allow her to develop in the direction that she wanted but one which has forced her to be concerned about image and perfection.’

  Diana was praised for simply existing. For being, not for doing. As one of her informal advisers said: ‘She was only expected by the royal system to be a clothes horse and an obedient wife. If that is the way you are defined, there is little to praise other than the choice of clothes. If the clothes were partially picked by others then there is nothing to praise. They set her nothing praiseworthy to do.’ The Duchess of York, this boisterous, independent and energetic young woman, was viewed by Prince Charles, his family and the media as a welcome arrival and a suitable role model for the Princess of Wales. The whole world seemed to encourage Diana to follow her lead.

  The first signal of the change in her behaviour was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s nightclub before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank-you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can.

  This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the women, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photocall. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as 90 assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: ‘Come on, come on!’ Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: ‘I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no one else will.’ It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang, although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: ‘It was good fun but within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.’

  On one occasion Charles, Andrew and Sarah watched a video in the chalet while Diana went out to a local disco where she danced with Peter Greenall, a member of the brewing family, and chatted to old Etonian Philip Dunne, one of Sarah’s childhood friends. Indeed it was the Duchess, who always had a bulging address book even before she entered the royal world, who was asked by Prince Charles to invite two single men along on their holiday. He wanted to make sure that his wife and other female guests, who did not ski as well as he did, had suitable company. The Duchess chose Dunne, a merchant banker who was later described as a ‘Superman lookalike’, and David Waterhouse, then a captain in the Household Cavalry. While the majority of the ski party went on taxing off-piste runs, the two men accompanied Catherine Soames, the former wife of Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Soames, and Diana on less exacting slopes. They got along famously. Diana found Waterhouse to be a man of great good humour with a magnetic personality. Philip was ‘very sweet’ but no more. Indeed, she was much more friendly with his sister Millie who then worked at Capital Radio running the ‘Help a London Child’ appeal.

  Ironically, it was Dunne who became the focus of attention when that summer the unsettled marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales was examined in some detail. It began with another innocent invitation, this time from Philip’s mother, Henrietta, who lived with her husband, Thomas Dunne, then the Lord Lieutenant of Hereford and Worcester, at Gatley Park. The Dunnes were away for a shooting weekend and so were delighted to offer their home for a house party. The skiing companions were present as well as a dozen other friends. The dozen friends were conveniently forgotten when a gossip columnist mischievously reported that she had stayed alone with Dunne at his parents’ home. Actually Diana was much closer to Waterhouse, enjoying his lively sense of humour.

  The public concern about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales was matched by a growing sense of irritation with the behaviour of younger members of the royal family. The breezy mood of hedonism which everyone enjoyed in the early years of Fergie’s royal life was now beginning to grate. Diana was forewarned by her astrologer Penny Thornton. When she visited her in the spring of 1987 she told the Princess that everything she did during the next few months she would pay for. The skittish behaviour on the ski slopes was followed in April by criticism when Diana was seen giggling as she reviewed the passing-out parade of young army officers at Sandhurst. She subsequently explained that it was the commanding officer’s weak jokes as well as her anxiety before making a short speech which caused the nervous laughter. Unfortunately the damage was done and at Royal Ascot two months later she once again came in for critical scrutiny. Photographers captured the moment when Diana and Sarah poked their friend Lulu Blacker in the backside with their rolled umbrellas.

  The watching world chorused its disapproval. ‘Far too much frivolity’, sniffed the Daily Express while other commentators accused the women of behaving like actresses in a soap opera. Much was made of Diana’s behaviour at the wedding of the Duke of Beaufort’s son, the Marquis of Worcester, to the actress Tracy Ward. It was noted that while Prince Charles left early, she danced until the early hours with a number of partners including the gallery owner David Ker, art dealer Gerry Farrell and Philip Dunne. Her dancing style, which was angrily energetic, aroused much comment although little was made of the fact that Charles spent much of the evening locked in conversation with Camilla Parker Bowles.

  The name of Philip Dunne appeared once more when he was wrongly described as her partner at a David Bowie concert at Wembley Stadium. In fact, it was David Waterhouse who was photographed talking to her while the man sitting next to her, Viscount Linley, was conveniently cut out of the picture. Diana was in tears when she saw the picture in Monday’s papers. She was aware of the media interest in her male friends and so was annoyed with herself for allowing David Waterhouse to sit so near. It was a salutary lesson, compounded by the fact that she got, in her words, ‘slapped wrists’ for wearing a pair of leather trousers at the concert. Once again she was trying to behave like Fergie but courtiers at Buckingham Palace did not feel her apparel was suitable for a future queen.

  Worse was to come. On 22 September, Prince Charles flew to Balmoral while Diana and the children remained at Kensington Palace. They were not to see each other for well over a month. The strain told. Each time she left Kensington Palace she was conscious that she was being followed by photographers who hoped to capture her at an
unguarded moment. The Princess, Julia Samuel and David Waterhouse were snapped as they emerged from a West End cinema. Waterhouse didn’t help matters by leaping over a pedestrian barrier and racing off into the night. On another occasion a freelance cameraman claimed he photographed the Princess indulging in some horseplay with David Waterhouse and other friends when she emerged from the mews home of Kate Menzies. At the same time other cameramen were busy in Scotland. Lady Tryon, known as ‘Kanga’ and one of Charles’s trusted confidantes from his bachelor days, was photographed by his side. However, no one in the press mentioned the name of Camilla Parker Bowles, who was also among the house guests.

  While the public were unaware of Camilla's presence, the Princess knew full well that Mrs Parker Bowles was spending much time with Prince Charles. A sense of injustice burned deeply inside her. Every time she was spotted with an unattached man it made banner headlines while her husband’s ‘friendship’ with Camilla barely raised an eyebrow. As Philip Dunne, David Waterhouse and later James Gilbey and Captain James Hewitt realized to their cost, meetings with the Princess of Wales produced a high price in publicity and unwelcome personal attention. With hindsight, there was a large dollop of hypocrisy in her protests.

  The crisis in the relationship of the Prince and Princess of Wales became a matter of comment not merely for tabloid newspapers but also for serious journals, radio, television and the foreign media. For once the Palace took notice of the media storm. TV personality Jimmy Savile, who was exposed after his death in 2011 as a notorious sexual predator, and who often acted as a high-powered go-between in royal circles at the time, offered his services. In October, as speculation about the Waleses’ marriage reached fever-pitch, he suggested to the estranged royal couple that it would be an effective public relations exercise if they visited Dyfed in south Wales, which had been devastated by flooding. It would, he argued, help to blunt the damaging gossip.

  That short trip was not a success. The mood was set when Diana joined her husband at RAF Northolt for the short flight to Swansea. In a scene witnessed by numerous members of staff, the estrangement between the couple was made plain. Diana was already agitated before she saw her husband but she was unprepared for his hostility as she boarded the BAe 146 jet of the Queen’s Flight. When she tried to explain that she had had a terrible time from the media, who had followed her every move, the Prince was completely unsympathetic. ‘Oh God, what is the matter?’ he said in resigned tones as she talked about the difficulty of performing her public duties in such an atmosphere. He refused to listen and for much of the flight ignored her presence. ‘It was terrible,’ she told friends later. ‘I was crying out for help.’ The distance in their personal relations was underlined when, at the end of the visit, they returned once more to opposite ends of the country.

  It was time for the Princess to take stock. She remembered the occasion well, driving out of the claustrophobia of Kensington Palace with its spy cameras, watchful courtiers and prison walls to her favourite stretch of beach on the Dorset coast. As she walked the lonely sands, Diana realized that any hopes she may have harboured of a reconciliation with her husband were over. His hostile indifference made thoughts of starting afresh completely unrealistic. She had tried to conform to everything he wanted but her efforts at aping the behaviour of the Duchess of York, whom Prince Charles so admired, had been an unmitigated disaster. It brought Charles no closer to her and only served to make a mockery of her public image. The Princess for her own part felt deeply uncomfortable with the world of shallow frivolity epitomized by the Duchess of York. She knew in her heart that in order to survive she had to rediscover the real Diana Spencer, the girl whose character had for seven years been forsaken and submerged. It was time to face the facts of her life. For a long time she had been out of control, meekly agreeing to the wishes of her husband, the royal family and the media. On that long lonely walk she began to accept the challenges of her position and her destiny. Now was the moment to start believing in herself.

  6

  ‘My Life Has Changed Its Course’

  The Princess of Wales was feeling sorry for herself. Her skiing holiday had been spoiled by a nasty dose of influenza which confined her to bed for days. Early in the afternoon of 10 March 1988, the bedraggled figure of the Duchess of York appeared at her bedside in their secluded rented chalet at Wolfgang near the town of Klosters. Fergie, who was then pregnant with Princess Beatrice, was skiing down the black Christobel run when she took an uncharacteristic tumble and landed ignominiously on her back in a mountain stream.

  She was examined by a local doctor and, pale and shaken, driven back to the chalet. As the women were chatting, they heard a helicopter fly over. They were both filled with foreboding that there had been an avalanche which had somehow affected their skiing party. They were all on tenterhooks when shortly afterwards Prince Charles’s press secretary, Philip Mackie, came into the chalet. He didn’t know there was anyone upstairs and the women could hear him saying: ‘There’s been an accident.’ When he had completed his telephone call they shouted down and asked him what was wrong. Mackie, a former deputy editor of the Edinburgh Evening News, tried to shrug off the questions. ‘We’ll tell you soon,’ he said. For once Diana would not be put off by a Palace courtier and was insistent he told them what was going on. He told them that there had been an accident on the slopes and one of the party was dead.

  For what seemed like an eternity the Princess and her sister-in-law sat at the top of the stairs, hardly daring to breathe let alone move, as they waited anxiously for more news. Minutes later a call came through to say the victim was a man. Shortly afterwards Prince Charles, sounding shocked and distressed, rang and told Philip Mackie that he was all right but Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to the Queen, had been killed. Everyone started shaking in the first paroxysms of grief. As the Duchess burst into tears, Diana, her stomach churning with emotion, thought it best to deal with practicalities before the full impact of the tragedy overtook them. She packed Hugh’s suitcase while Fergie was given his passport to hand to Inspector Tony Parker, Charles’s bodyguard. The Princess carefully placed Hugh’s signet ring, his watch and his black curly wig, which, the night before, he had used for his hilarious Al Jolson impersonation, in the suitcase.

  When the suitcase was ready Diana took it downstairs and slid it under Tony Parker’s bed so that it would be readily available when they left. The chalet was in uproar that evening with an endless stream of visitors. A Swiss coroner arrived to ask about the circumstances of the accident, which occurred when an avalanche overcame the party as they skied down the Wang, a notorious, virtually perpendicular slope which regularly claims lives during the season. Another arrival was Charles Palmer-Tomkinson whose wife, Patti, was undergoing a seven-hour operation on her legs following injuries she had sustained during the avalanche. Diana was most concerned about Prince Charles’s inclination to return to the slopes the following day. The Prince was not immediately convinced that they should abandon their holiday but Diana prevailed. She appreciated that he was suffering from shock and could not at that awful time comprehend the enormity of the tragedy. For once Diana felt absolutely in command of a very trying situation. In fact she was quite bossy, telling her husband that it was their responsibility to return to Britain with Hugh’s body. It was, she argued, the least they could do for his wife, Sarah, a popular member of the Buckingham Palace press office who had only been married for a few months and was expecting their first child.

  The next day the party flew back to RAF Northolt outside London where Sarah, then six months pregnant with Alice, watched as her husband’s coffin was unloaded, with due military ceremony, from the aircraft. As the royal party stood with Sarah, Diana remembered thinking: ‘You just don’t know what you are going to go through in the next few days.’ Her instincts proved too painfully true. Sarah stayed with Diana and her sister Jane for a few days at Highgrove as she tried to come to terms with Hugh’s death. There were tears from dawn til
l dusk as she and Diana talked about Hugh and what he had meant to her. His loss was all the harder to bear because he had been killed overseas.

  The tragedy had a profound effect on Diana. It taught her that not only could she cope with a crisis but she could also take control and make significant decisions in the face of opposition from her husband. Klosters was the beginning of the slow process of awakening to the qualities and possibilities which lay within herself.

  A terse telephone call from her friend Carolyn Bartholomew opened another window into herself. For some time Carolyn had been concerned about Diana’s bulimia and had discovered to her horror that chronic deprivation of vital minerals such as chromium, zinc and potassium could lead to depression and tiredness. She telephoned Diana and urged her to see a doctor. Diana didn’t have the will to discuss her problems with a specialist. Carolyn issued a sharp ultimatum. Either the Princess saw a doctor or she would tell the world about Diana’s condition, which she had so far managed to keep secret. Diana spoke to the Spencer family’s local doctor who recommended her to Dr Maurice Lipsedge, a specialist in eating disorders who worked at Guy’s Hospital in central London. From the moment he walked into her drawing room at Kensington Palace, she sensed that he was an understanding man in whom she could place her trust. He wasted no time with social niceties, asking her immediately how many times she had tried to commit suicide. While she was taken aback by this abrupt question, her reply was equally forthright: ‘Four or five times.’

  He fired questions at her for two hours before telling her that he could help her to recover in no time at all. In fact he was confident enough to state categorically that if she managed to keep her food down, in six months’ time she would be a new person. Dr Lipsedge concluded that the problem did not lie with the Princess but with her husband. For the next few months he visited her every week. He encouraged her to read books about her condition. Even though she had to read them secretly in case they were seen by her husband or members of staff, she found herself inwardly rejoicing as she turned over the pages. ‘This is me, this is me, I’m not the only one,’ she told Carolyn.