In my favour I had many strong cards to play. First and foremost was the enthusiastic hospitality of our Pakistani hosts. There was also what seemed to be an infinite variety of tempting programme options in which I had almost a free hand. From the snow-capped valleys of Chitral in the Himalayas to the sweltering public health projects of Lahore, there were enough potential engagements to fill a hundred tours. I also had the advantage of working for a Princess who was almost as keen as I was to jump on the aeroplane.
In the increasingly sensitive political atmosphere back home, I had secured a clear-cut mandate from the Foreign Office for the Princess to make such a high-profile solo visit. Opinion on the royal home front was at least neutral, if, I felt, rather watchful. Not too many tears would be shed if this ground-breaking solo tour disappeared into the inside pages of the tabloids. In fact it was to invade the front pages of the broadsheets, a place claimed by most of the Princess’s tours ever afterwards. Our own Foreign Office’s enthusiasm owed much to the influence of our High Commissioner in Islamabad, the irrepressible Nicholas Barrington, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of Pakistan and whole-hearted commitment to the success of the tour proved decisive in making it such a triumph.
That success was certainly not cheaply won, at least in terms of my nervous energy. I knew that for me personally the tour was a make-or-break milestone. Failure would destroy the mutual trust which I was beginning to develop with my boss and which lies at the root of any effective relationship between a private secretary and his principal. For her part, even though she was used to playing for high stakes, Pakistan was a crucial way-point for the Princess too, in her quest for a new, independent and substantial public role. As she was kind enough to say in her letter of thanks to me after the tour, I therefore put my heart and soul into making sure it would work.
We flew on a scheduled British Airways flight to Muscat, where a BAe-146 of the Queen’s Flight had pre-positioned to carry us on the last leg of the journey to Islamabad. Even getting that far was not without incident. Perhaps oppressed by pre-tour nerves, the Princess retreated to a corner of our cabin on the scheduled 767 and did not emerge from her self-imposed isolation until we arrived for a refuelling stop at Dharan in Saudi Arabia.
To my consternation I saw that a red carpet had been laid on the tarmac and what was very obviously a royal welcoming committee had assembled at the foot of the aircraft steps. We had made no requests for any sort of official recognition of our transit stop and I knew it would not be welcome to the Princess. With uncharacteristically tousled hair and sleepy face, she peered over her British Airways blanket for just long enough to tell me, ‘You’d better sort this out, Patrick.’
I duly descended to confer with the officials now looking anxiously up at the aeroplane from which royalty stubbornly failed to materialize. Our hosts plainly reckoned that, although a poor substitute for the real thing, I was better than no guest at all, so I spent the hour or so of our refuelling stop being entertained literally royally in the VIP terminal, where the full paraphernalia of a buffet and other refreshments had been laid on. As I tucked into the caviar, exotic salad and foie gras, I began to wish that I had not so recently done justice to a BA dinner. I felt my country’s honour was at stake, however, so I dutifully loaded up my plate. Judging by their own groaning plates, my hosts were equally anxious not to let a single quail’s egg go to waste.
My conscience improved when I spoke to the local Governor’s chief of staff, who explained that it was quite normal to make such arrangements when any member of the ruling family or indeed any visiting ruling family passed through the airport. Such were the accepted whims of royalty, that, whether or not the Princess disembarked to see the preparations that had been made for her, no offence would be taken. A little later I duly staggered back to the plane and whispered this reassuring message to the sleeping Princess. It seemed a pity to wake her.
Mercifully, by the time we had settled into the familiar surroundings of the Queen’s Flight 146 which awaited us after an overnight stop in Muscat, the Princess was beginning to exhibit that blend of confidence, enthusiasm and quick-wittedness which she would need in large measure during the days that followed and which made her such an accomplished royal performer.
The little red and white jet made good progress over the Arabian Sea and along the length of Pakistan, and she descended in it as if it were a chariot on an expectant and excited Islamabad. As we waited for the doors to open, she looked out of her window and surveyed the scene. This time it was all for her – the waiting High Commissioner, the Government Ministers, the red carpet, the girls with baskets of rose petals and the line of politely clapping officials. This time the small talk in the chilly VIP lounge would be for her to control and she had read enough of her briefing to ensure that, of all the subjects to be discussed, shopping would definitely not be among them.
I imagine every private secretary who ever organized a royal tour must at times have wished for a magic book of instructions which, if faithfully followed, would produce a reliably successful result. Helpful guidelines were indeed prepared, but they were only for the use of Embassies. Others had haphazardly accumulated for typists or domestic staff. For the private secretary there was no single source of distilled wisdom gleaned from decades of royal tours, or if there was I never saw it. Instead, being naturally a bit of a bureaucrat, I tried to distil my own.
Much like many better private secretaries before me, no doubt, I never reduced it to the single set of foolproof gems which between them would hold the answer to every potential tour calamity. This was mostly because, in the case of the Waleses and particularly in the case of the Princess, our tour programmes had to be as adaptable as possible to take account of the capriciousness of our employers’ moods.
In the end, apart from a few straightforward domestic fixtures, such as her reluctance to begin the day’s engagements before 10.00 a.m., there was only one rule that mattered: make it work. For the Princess, the main measure as to whether or not an event had worked was the judgement passed on it by the next day’s papers. If this seems rather cynical and further evidence of the Princess’s obsession with her newspaper image, then that is probably no more than the truth. I reconciled myself to this rather unelevated principle by reflecting that if the Princess’s good works were not seen, then they were largely useless.
Her pursuit of private virtue was one thing, but when in public I was determined that she should get maximum credit not just for herself but for the causes she brought to the public’s attention. This perhaps reinforced what I already knew. She was not in herself a saint or blessed with an unusual amount of human compassion, but she represented how much compassion was needed in the world and some of the ways in which it could most effectively be directed.
This was no time, I reasoned, for her to hide her light under a bushel. Beginning with Pakistan, I tried to arrange all the programmes for her tours with an eye to what would make it easiest for the inevitable accompanying press to do their job. I knew that if the first day’s engagements gave the photographers some good snaps ‘in the can’ and the reporters some stories that positively highlighted the main themes of the visit, then half the battle was won.
After arriving in Pakistan, therefore, the Princess went straight from the airport to her first engagement. Message: ‘I am an energetic working woman keen to get down to business straight away.’
The first engagement was in fact to lay a wreath at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Rawalpindi. Message: ‘I am representing the Queen on this visit. As well as the status this confers, I also want to make it plain that I am firmly aligned with the monarchy’s traditional role of presenting themes of continuity and respect for past sacrifice.’
The next stop was a centre for the hard of hearing. Message: ‘Despite this, once the opening formalities are accomplished, I want to get down to work doing what I do best – showing my concern for the sick.’
Then it was on to the High Commission to shake hand
s with British diplomatic staff and their families. Message: ‘We’re always expected to do this, so I’m going to get it over and done with right at the beginning.’
Finally the Princess retired to her quarters to prepare for the evening’s official dinner. Message: ‘This should have given my dresser plenty of time to unpack the hairbrushes …’
At the Prime Minister’s dinner that evening, the Princess proposed a toast and made a speech and generally flew the flag for British diplomacy with an assurance that would have brought sorrow to all – and there were not a few – who would have liked her to be portrayed on her solo mission as an empty-headed lightweight, more accustomed to pop concerts and clothes shops than the volatile politics of the subcontinent.
The next day saw more of the same with what I hoped was a judicious blend of commercial promotion – in this case in aid of the British telecommunications industry, mainstream medical and welfare engagements – mostly concerned with women’s and young people’s issues, and formal ceremony – provided by her attendance at the President’s dinner.
On the third day, however, the effects of unfamiliar food, the weather and the constraints of an intense programme that required unfamiliar amounts of application and self-discipline began to tell. Showing a side of herself that was all too familiar, the Princess fell into habits of sulkiness and passive defiance that might conceivably have been tolerated and even justified in certain circumstances back home. Seeing their appearance in the middle of our most ambitious and exposed expedition so far, however, filled me with apprehension and no little degree of irritation. Moodiness was a trait she generally regarded as unforgivable in others – notably her husband – and she would take voluble pride in being too professional to succumb to it herself. Why could she not see, I whined to myself impotently, that she could put all her achievements at risk by indulging in the type of petulant emotion that would have earned most three-year-olds no pudding and an early bed?
The situation came to a head as we sat on the humid night-time tarmac at Lahore airport with Nicholas Barrington, waiting to return to Islamabad for a dinner which the Princess was due to host at the High Commission. As she sat morosely in her corner seat in the aircraft, I could see from a hundred small signs that she had given up for the day. Her mouth was set in an obstinate pout, her shoulders hunched as she turned away from us and suddenly she had found something fascinating to look at in the darkness outside her porthole. This was big trouble. I had always suspected that, despite her habitual professionalism, given a sufficiently bolshy mood she might just refuse to play any more.
The same impression was growing on the High Commissioner who, being committed to his duty and also a bachelor, was visibly at a loss to understand what was going wrong. I could almost hear the song running through his mind:
Oh why can’t a woman
Be more like a man?
Just as I was beginning to nerve myself for the task of reconciling these two irreconcilable forces, word came from the flight deck that there was a severe thunderstorm over Islamabad and we would have to stay on the ground in Lahore and wait for it to pass.
Nicholas and I were both filled with strong emotions. He wanted the thunderstorm to pass quickly so that we could get back to his beautiful residence for the most prestigious dinner of the Islamabad year. In sharp contrast, I wanted the storm to stay exactly where it was and so give the Princess the perfect excuse for missing the dinner altogether and taking the early night she obviously needed.
To escape the heavily charged atmosphere that she had built up around herself, we excused ourselves and went to stand under the wing of the 146 to shelter from the rain which was now beginning to splash in warm, heavy drops on to the aluminium above our heads. With my heart in my mouth, I watched a slight figure in RAF blue slowly walking towards us from the airport’s meteorological office. Luckily our Captain did not know that, whatever the weatherman said, he was going to disappoint either the Princess or the High Commissioner. It was a dramatic moment. As a sudden, heavier burst of rain pattered on the engine casings I saw the Princess’s profile silhouetted at the lighted window and prayed fervently to the local gods of thunder and lightning.
The Squadron Leader came to a halt in front of us and pushed back his cap. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re going to be stuck on the ground here for some time yet. The storm isn’t forecast to move from Islamabad for a couple of hours at least.’
‘God, what rotten luck!’ I said rather too quickly. I dared not look at Nicholas, but heard his carefully controlled exhalation.
I got back into the royal compartment just ahead of him. Fixing our now very bolshy-looking Princess with as good a stare as I could muster, I announced, ‘Very bad news, Ma’am. I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait here and miss your dinner at the residence.’
She visibly brightened, but remembered herself enough to say, ‘Oh Nicholas, I am sorry. How very disappointing for you.’
There was no mistaking her sudden chirpiness as we got off the plane. Nicholas manfully swallowed his feelings and we spent a raucous hour drinking tea and telling stories in the VIP terminal while his assistant made some urgent phone calls.
As I was saying goodnight to her back at her room in the residence, she said to me, ‘That thunderstorm was a bit of luck. I don’t think I could have faced another grown-up evening like that.’
‘Yes Ma’am,’ I agreed, ‘but …’ and I trailed off.
She stopped kicking off her shoes and looked at me. Then she repeated what was becoming a bit of a catchphrase. ‘I know, Patrick. What you’re saying is, “Just shut up, Diana, and do your job.”’ I left her laughing to get on with her own phone calls.
Downstairs Nicholas presided mournfully over empty tables full of linen, crystal and silver, meticulously prepared for a grand dinner that would now not take place. It had been, I knew, a labour of love, for him and his staff. With the help of the PPOs and some senior High Commission staff, we managed to have a very merry stag dinner and all felt much better.
The next day spirits soared again as we headed off to the North-West Frontier. From Michni Point high in the Khyber Pass, the future British Queen looked down into Afghanistan from the furthermost rampart of what had been the frontier of British India. The future British Queen … and her hairdresser.
Early that morning I had been congratulating myself on that clever trick with the thunderstorm – and trying to wish away a minor hangover – when, typically, a royal whim disturbed the clublike tranquillity of the High Commissioner’s breakfast table. Reluctantly I put down my black coffee and presented myself as requested at the Princess’s bedroom, where she was finishing her own more modest breakfast of grapefruit and wholemeal toast.
‘Patrick!’ she said brightly. ‘Did you boys have fun last night?’
Careful. Fun was, theoretically, impossible without her presence. ‘Ah well, you know, Ma’am. We missed you. But we had to keep His Ex company …’
‘I bet you did.’ Her eyes searched my face and general appearance for signs of last night’s excesses. My head throbbed alarmingly, but I seemed to pass the inspection. Thank God for naval training, I thought, wondering what was coming next.
‘Would you like me to run through today’s programme?’ I asked. That usually flushed it out.
‘No thanks, I’ve read all my briefing, and I can always look at it again on the plane if I run out of things to say to the Minister.’ As a courtesy, she was accompanied everywhere by a member of the Pakistani Government. ‘Anyway, everything you organize seems to run so smoothly!’ This was terrible. Compliments usually had a price tag attached. I waited for it to make an appearance. ‘Patrick, why aren’t Sam and Helen coming with us today?’
It sounded innocent enough. Sam and Helen were, respectively, the hairdresser and the dresser. Both were vital figures in my universe, since they were crucial in delivering to me each day a Princess ready to do the work I inflicted on her. Their place was back at base, howev
er, ready to welcome their mistress home with a smile after a hard day at the royal coalface. In fact, they usually preferred it that way, having most of the day free to sit by the pool or take up the shopping and local sightseeing I had arranged for them as part of my recce.
The Princess’s sudden enquiry was for one of two reasons, I quickly concluded. Either Sam and Helen had already grown tired of the High Commission’s recreational opportunities and had used their unrivalled access to lobby for a more exciting trip (they seemed happy enough, so I assumed it was not a sign of discontent from them), or the Princess was amusing herself with a request which was not unreasonable on the surface – it demonstrated her famous concern for her staff’s welfare, after all – but which she knew could potentially cause havoc with my carefully prepared passenger lists, seating plans, catering arrangements and general programme fine-tuning.
This might be a backhanded compliment to my organizational powers. If so, it was one I could cheerfully have done without. Or, the unworthy thought occurred to me, it might be revenge for last night’s quality lad time. It was not beyond her. She had probably heard the singing.
Either way, it was a fast ball, as she well knew. There was only one way to play it, so I knocked it back to her for the easy catch she wanted. ‘Of course they can come, Ma’am. Easy. The more the merrier.’
‘I thought so too. Now, which d’you think I should wear?’ She held up two pastel-coloured jackets which to my eye looked virtually identical.
‘You always look good in pink, Ma’am.’
‘D’you think so? Really? I’ll wear the pink, then, if you like it.’
I had passed the test. If she had gone for the green, I would have started a difficult day knowing that I was already in the doghouse – and so would everybody else who understood our charming code.
The day turned out to be a huge success. The men of the Khyber Rifles gave her exactly the sort of unaffected masculine welcome that was always guaranteed to put her in top form and the front pages of the next day’s London papers all carried the picture of a laughing Princess wearing her newly acquired Pakistani military headgear. Just out of camera shot were a smiling Sam and Helen, who then and often afterwards repaid my extra work with far greater favours in terms of my relations with their mistress than I could ever do them.
Shadows of a Princess Page 22