Having seen the Princess retire safely to her quarters for the night, the rest of our small party fell to exploring the train’s supplies of good brandy and expensive cigars. It may have been these, or some fault with the air-conditioning in my cabin, but I woke early the next morning in the grip of one of the worst hangovers of my entire life. I was convinced that its treatment required a day of complete bed rest, subdued lighting, gentle music and nourishment by intravenous drip. Instead I knew that in a couple of hours I would have to begin a long day of gruelling engagements, at a time in my career when anything less than a faultless performance might have dire, long-term consequences. Summoning up years of training, I somehow managed to shower, shave and dress before making my way unsteadily to the household dining car.
Sometimes, I recalled, my abused system would respond to shock treatment. The royal train’s fried breakfasts were legendary – and probably the greatest alimentary shock on wheels. Grimly resolving to be cured or die in the attempt, I ordered the full works, but when it arrived, in all its artery-threatening glory, surrounded by a thin pool of grease which lapped gently at the edges of my plate, my stomach threatened imminent rebellion and the carriage started a slow spin.
A rather hurt steward removed my plate and returned to see if there was anything I would like instead. Remembering another sovereign cure, I asked if by any chance he had some plain yoghurt on the train. ‘No, sir. I’m afraid we don’t,’ he said, looking suddenly very crestfallen. Feeling rather crestfallen myself, I retired to a quiet corner with a bottle of mineral water and massaged my forehead between sips.
Soon I became aware that we had stopped in a large city. Through gritty eyes I could recognize that it was not yet Edinburgh, thank goodness, but it was somewhere pretty big. Newcastle? I closed my eyes again, deciding there were better people than me in charge of driving the train, especially in my present condition. Soon we were moving again and the throbbing in my temples began to ease.
Silently the steward reappeared at my side. ‘I got your yoghurt, sir!’ he said with an air of triumph. There on the table sat six cartons of yoghurt, all of them sweet and fruity, which I knew would do nothing to calm the incipient mutiny in my insides. It was undeniably yoghurt nevertheless, and as I thanked the steward I was silently cursing him for having over-reacted to my request. To keep him happy, I gamely ate two of the glutinous concoctions and felt, if anything, slightly worse.
Somehow I survived our day in Edinburgh with both my job and my liver intact, but the next morning my darkest fears were realized. As if in divine retribution, a prominent tabloid newspaper story reported that the Princess of Wales had commanded the royal train to make an unscheduled stop in Newcastle so that a harassed member of the train staff could make an urgent purchase of yoghurt. The paper went on to remark that this was further proof, if any were needed, that the Princess was impulsive and imperious in her unreasonable demands and, more than likely, that she was pregnant as well.
Even on their own, each of these allegations would have been enough to put the Princess in a foul enough mood to start chopping off heads. Put together, they earned me a very uncomfortable day while she considered my rather implausible explanation. Back at base, I stomped around the office trying to look unconcerned and failing miserably. I even eyed the appointments section of The Times, but gave up when I realized that I was probably not qualified for anything at all useful.
Then, as suddenly as it had blown up, the storm mercifully passed. Such were her moods. I did not have long to wait for the next, however.
At around this time, relations between the Prince and Princess were undergoing another downturn. As was often the case, just as trouble was brewing behind the scenes, the public image as interpreted by the media was determinedly optimistic. That summer – 1990 – the Prince had fallen while playing polo and suffered severe injuries to his arm. While he was hospitalized in Nottingham, the Princess filled in at short notice for some of the engagements he had been forced to cancel and also made some highly publicized visits to his sickbed. The combined image of brave royal trouper and concerned wife was impossible to resist.
Unfortunately, any sentiment of wifely duty which may have lain behind her actions was quickly redressed in the Princess’s mind, and in the minds of other observers, by the reactions of the Prince’s own staff to his injury. Quite apart from the lady physiotherapist, who for some time was an indispensable part of the recovery effort, his close personal staff clustered round in a way that would have done credit to a flock of broody hens.
The extraordinary degree of male concern shown by his staff to the hospitalized Prince drew mild derision from his wife. She felt excluded by their protectiveness, which she interpreted as overfamiliar. ‘They’ll be dressing up as nurses next!’ she snorted. It was true that, ironically, some of the Prince’s men felt free to express a devotion to their master which might have sounded odd coming from a male member of her own staff. Several aspired to share his exquisite taste, too, and the Prince’s warrant-holders found a ready market among his staff for everything from shirts to eau de cologne.
Whether it was the intention or not, such closing of ranks served to fuel the sense in the Princess’s mind and in the office generally that the Prince’s misfortune was a private matter and others should keep out. It also earned him a great deal of sympathy and caused the appearance of glowing references to his physical courage on the field of play – none of which seemed to cheer her up very much.
It was therefore a good moment to dangle something in front of her that would be high profile and symbolically independent. One of her more glamorous patronages had the ideal proposal. The London City Ballet had for years been struggling to match its remarkable artistic success with similar triumphs in the field of fundraising, but it was a hard slog. When the opportunity arose in the autumn of 1990 to earn some serious money with a royal fundraising dinner in Washington DC, they were therefore quick to ask for their patron’s involvement and she was just as quick to accept the invitation.
Her eagerness and mine may have had something to do with our enthusiastic recollections of the triumph in New York, but, as others have also learned to their cost, New York and Washington are very different cities, with very different attitudes to the sort of glitz represented by visiting Princesses.
Apparently out of the blue, Washington’s smart social commentators started to give the Princess’s visit decidedly mixed billing. The Washington Post quoted Georgette Mossbacher, a Washington society hostess, as saying, ‘The British organizers of the Gala erred by failing to consult local community members.’ She and her formidable sisterhood of ‘community members’ began to find they had no space in their busy engagement diaries for a mere royal gala dinner. Suddenly it was noted that everything, from the catering to the gilt chairs which would be used at the banquet, had been shipped from England. What was the matter with this Princess, the murmurers implied, that she did not like Washington food and could not bring herself to sit on real American furniture?
Smoke signals from our own Foreign Office reminded me of the advice we had been given to think very carefully before undertaking fundraising events of any kind in the USA. Other households began to mutter. My brother private secretaries – an intimidating trade union – began to look reproachfully at the Princess’s plans as their own American ‘Viking raids’ for charity cash came under scrutiny. The White House, where we hoped to have coffee with Mrs Bush, also seemed to be having cold feet. Nobody would confirm our appointment.
It was a classic example of how good intentions and an apparently perfectly correct use of royal patronage could precipitate a minor media landslide which left us all with the uneasy feeling that the ground was shifting under our feet. With the disaster-sensitive antennae that seemed to be a courtier’s stock in trade, my colleagues began to be sympathetic. Then I really started to worry.
The Princess herself switched moods violently and apparently overnight. From enthusiastically looking fo
rward to what she imagined would be another New York-style triumph, she became apprehensive about potential bad publicity and began to look around in a predatory way for scapegoats before the act even began. With my severance from the Navy now absolute, my Duchy house not yet ready for occupation and a series of recent close escapes, I began to feel that I was already facing my final hours. The speedboat of my new job seemed to be heading inexorably for the rocks. It was time to act decisively if I was not to find myself washed up on the beach with the other flotsam.
Early one evening I picked up the telephone to the Palace switchboard and heard myself nervously barking, in the worst B-movie style, ‘Get me the White House!’ Somehow in the days that followed, not least with the help of the irrepressible Francis Cornish – still at the Embassy in Washington – and with the co-operation of the ballet company and its sponsors, we completed the necessary surgery to the programme in the nick of time. The hostesses found room in their diaries again, the First Lady and then the President himself sent word that they hoped the Princess would visit with them. Everybody forgot about the English chairs.
As we boarded Concorde, it was with the feeling that our chestnuts had been pulled out of the fire, if only just. There were still dangers ahead, however. Some of the slower London tabloids were still reporting Washington’s anticipated coolness to the visit and it was one of these two-page spreads that an aghast lady-in-waiting dramatically drew to the Princess’s attention with wide-eyed horror as we sat in the aeroplane. I could cheerfully have strangled her, had she not been sitting on the opposite side of the aisle. With friends like these … I tensed, ready for the explosion.
It never came, surprisingly, and the Princess kept her nerve. She seemed to realize that this was no time for a traditional display of royal petulance. In fact, it was the first of many occasions when we both knew we had stuck our necks out and the best way to minimize any recriminations was to plough on and look serene. Sadly, though, she forgot this lesson more often than she remembered it. Petulance in adversity is a hard habit to break.
The supersonic jet arrived in Washington on time. There was the familiar figure of the Ambassador to greet us, together with the even more welcome figure of the Princess’s PPO Graham Smith, who had gone ahead to co-ordinate arrangements with the Secret Service. There, too, were the Secret Service agents, looking reassuringly as if they had come straight from central casting and named, I swear, Lenny, Lonny, Danny and Randy.
The gala that evening was a great success. Nobody mentioned the chairs and everybody seemed to enjoy the food. The Princess, in a scarlet silk, cowl-necked dress reminiscent of Greek goddesses, at last attracted the kind of acclaim she was used to. Such was her star quality that the reality of her presence – as opposed to catty previews – usually had that effect.
Across the crowded dance floor I caught a glimpse of her doing a sedate twirl with Michael Ashcroft. As the principal benefactor of the London City Ballet, this was no less than his due. For her part, the patron seemed to be enjoying herself, although her attitude to rich benefactors as a class was ambivalent. She recognized the immense help they gave to good causes, often making the difference between life and death for vital projects. She also observed, however, that for many, involvement in her charities was a means of acquiring the remaining intangible assets that money could not buy: gratitude, recognition and – perhaps – a knighthood. ‘They’d put their money in a dustbin if I asked them to,’ she said on an unusually jaundiced day.
Nonetheless, there was no disguising the fact that the success of the Washington trip owed much to the prompt generosity of both Michael Ashcroft and John Hughes, the LCB’s chairman. By guaranteeing generous donations to the local charity benefiting from the ballet evening – Grandma’s House children’s AIDS centre – they helped draw the remaining sting of the capital’s sceptical social commentators.
Very late that night, Graham and I sat drinking whisky in the room I had been allocated at the Ambassador’s residence. I tried to find inspiration in any lingering presence of its most famous former occupant, Winston Churchill, but it took Graham to point out a distant parallel with the famed bulldog spirit.
I was complaining about the tightrope act I already felt my job was becoming. Graham did not disagree, but then he observed, ‘This could have been a disaster, but you told her the truth about the risks we were running and it made her determined to fight to make it a success. You’ve got to tell it to her straight – not many of you lot have the guts to do that. Then she may bite your head off at the time, but she’ll respect you for it later.’
Like practically everything else the PPOs said, this was good advice and it told me something about the Princess that I was already beginning to suspect. She had no compunction about hitting below the belt – and she never accepted defeat. For someone so often obsessed with the fickle winds of popularity, once her mind was made up she was coldly determined and would fight tenaciously to protect her own interests, as her opponents eventually discovered.
The next day, the Princess visited Grandma’s House, a home for underprivileged children, all of whom were expected to die from AIDS before they reached their teens. The picture of the Princess surrounded by so many hopeful, upturned faces was repeated a thousand times all over the world, but that particular memory still brings a lump to the throat.
From there, still glowing with virtue, we travelled in an impressive motorcade to the White House for tea with the President and Mrs Bush. Like a number of other powerful older women, Mrs Bush seemed to feel a protective, almost motherly attitude towards the Princess. She ushered us round on a tour of the famous building, chatting away. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, the house decorated in sunny shades of yellow. ‘Not the most sensible colour to choose,’ admitted Mrs Bush, ‘when you’ve got spaniels in the house. Nancy Reagan would have a fit.’
Part of the way through our tour, she somehow managed to lose her bearings. We emerged unexpectedly from a side door into the area where the tourists were queuing up for their own guided tour. For a moment the two women stood uncertainly in front of the startled crowd. As recognition slowly dawned, the double takes were worth the whole trip.
Later we sat down to tea. Dainty cakes were handed round. A photographer flashed discreetly in the background and flitted out. The Princess and the First Lady talked about AIDS and children and spaniels and AIDS and ballet and AIDS…
President Bush stirred restlessly in his chair. Even seated, he radiated energy and enthusiasm. On the other side of the world Saddam Hussein was preparing to invade Kuwait and the President’s next meeting was to discuss the growing crisis. Suddenly he turned to the Princess and briskly asked her what the British public’s attitude was to the prospect of war in the Middle East.
For a horrible moment it was obvious that the Princess’s mind had gone blank. I felt the Ambassador stiffen next to me, but she was beyond our reach. ‘Um,’ she said. Then, ‘I think it’s all very worrying.’ You could always tell when she had been caught on the hop, because her voice reverted to an exaggerated Sloane drawl.
There was an uncomfortable pause. Noiselessly, an aide appeared at the doorway. ‘Mr President? The Joint Chiefs are ready.’
President Bush took his cue. ‘Well,’ he said, seeming to get out of his armchair and shake our hands in one smooth movement, ‘guess I’d better go save the world!’
Back in London a note arrived for me in the Bag:
Thank you very much for fighting my corner with the folk in Washington. It’s greatly appreciated. D.
That was all right, then.
It was not all right for long, however. Another ordeal was on its way, and this one was much bigger than my yoghurt crisis, bigger even than the Washington ballet gala crisis. That winter, every other issue was dwarfed by the growing preparations for war in the Gulf. The Princess’s reaction to such a great national drama presented new problems for me. It also revealed a devastating personal drama of her own.
From bases all over the United Kingdom and from Germany, what seemed to be the greater part of the country’s fighting strength was flying off to the heat and sand of Arabia, still so vivid in my memory from our tour there. Now, with war in the Gulf a certainty, I saw a chance for the Princess to reinforce her continuing place at the royal top table. She should go to the desert to cheer up the troops, I told my superiors. To myself and the Princess only, I added an additional reason: such a trip would symbolically reinforce her position as future Queen by showing her actively supporting the forces of the Crown as they prepared for battle. How better to prove to a sceptical establishment that the Princess was ideally qualified to represent the younger generation’s support for our brave boys? And how better to cheer up the brave boys getting ready to fight in the desert than with some youthful glamour? The choice seemed obvious – to me, anyway.
The Princess was enthusiastic about my plan for many laudable reasons and for a few others as well, as I discovered. These turned out to be mainly to do with Captain James Hewitt, already practising gunnery with his regiment on an Arabian beach.
Meanwhile, the Prince’s advisers had come up with a similar idea and, showing a glimpse of their growing skill at lobbying, succeeded in persuading Buckingham Palace to propose their man to go and be photographed among the Challenger crews. This he duly did. Rather tamely, the Princess was sent instead to raise morale at the offices of the Gulf Help Line, which had been set up to provide reassurance to relatives of those Saddam was keeping as human shields in Kuwait. Shortly before Christmas 1990, she was also sent to Germany to comfort the families whose menfolk had gone to war.
Shadows of a Princess Page 26