Popularity issues were exercising other households too, especially in the aftermath of the so-called annus horribilis. Press preoccupation with royal matters moved from the Waleses’ separation to the announcement that the Queen would henceforth pay tax. This did not greatly affect the Princess, whose income came from the Duchy of Cornwall via the Prince, but it heightened the already acute sense of turbulence that was the constant accompaniment to our daily lives. It also had the beneficial effect of shifting the spotlight – at least temporarily – away from the Princess as she marshalled her forces for the task of inventing for herself a historically unprecedented new role: a Princess of Wales with no constitutional position other than that of mother of a future King.
In doing this, her watchwords were an absence of obvious excess, a minimum of formality, a quick and flexible response to topical humanitarian issues and an obvious – some would say too obvious – readiness to communicate with her public in ways that acknowledged and even encouraged the emotional dimension of her work. It was a formula that she created herself. Many of its elements were present in the working styles of other members of the royal family, but none, I believe, combined them all to such extraordinary effect as the Princess of Wales.
The prize would be to reinforce the link between this evolving and plainly popular style of royal work and the best of the historical, traditional roots from which it drew so much of its strength. It was desperately disappointing to discover that the Princess did not share this view of the ultimate prize, paying it lip service when it suited her and ignoring it entirely when it did not.
The opportunity so wisely created by the Queen for the Princess to symbolize the continuity of old and new was never properly taken up. It was smothered partly by the opposition of those who felt the best way of advancing the Prince’s interests was to belittle his wife, and partly by her own inability to grow into the public image which she and fate had created. Too often, narrowness of vision or timidity of spirit denied her the prize which was hers for the taking and which so many observers still linked to the future health of the monarchy.
The future monarch, of course, was King William V and the Princess took none of her responsibilities more seriously than this – to prepare her children for life in the public eye. This determination only increased after the separation when, already in her heart believing that she would not be Queen, she concentrated instead on passing on to William the art of being royal, with the perspective that could only come from an outsider who had needed to learn so much so quickly and at such personal cost.
Her children learned from the outset to be considerate of the staff with whom they shared their homes and offices. They were taught not to fear the strong emotions aroused by the death and illness that would be their companions for as long as royalty involved itself with the care of the suffering. On the rare occasions when they accompanied her on public engagements, they also learned how to conduct a walkabout in streets lined with beseeching, expectant and adoring faces – a daunting sight for a 10-year-old – with every sign of genuine delight. She once remarked to me about the irony of teaching her children to be friendly and outgoing to strangers at an age when most parents were warning their children to do the precise opposite.
Most importantly, the Princess taught them these things without ever surrendering her determination that her children should lead lives as similar as possible to those of their contemporaries. She therefore made sure that they also enjoyed trips to McDonalds, the cinema, shops and parties with schoolfriends.
The Princess set about preparing for her solo existence and independent role with several practical changes. The tabloids duly noted small but meaningful alterations to her hairstyle and wardrobe. Less obvious, but more significant in the long run, was her decision to continue work on her speech-training, which reinforced her determination to be heard as well as merely seen. Another laughter-packed session with the photographer Patrick Demarchelier produced new images of a determined and confident-looking Princess.
This repackaging initiative was great fun, but it had to lead somewhere. I soon noticed that there was little sign of an intellectual makeover to accompany the new ‘executive Princess’ look. The failure to follow up opportunities to expand her work with the Red Cross was a case in point.
I had my own ideas, of course, but part of my longevity was due to a recognition that my input would really only be heeded at each end of the decision-making process. I should make sure I was heard first – to start the ball rolling or in answer to a perceived need, and last – when all other options had been discarded. In between these start and end points lay a vast space, to be filled with ideas from other sources.
I saw it as a kind of laboratory of ideas in which the Princess could enjoy the freedom to take opinions from anyone she chose. I did not have to intervene – it would have been unwise to intrude on the freedom – but I still retained a degree of control. After all, I would usually have to implement whatever scheme the laboratory finally produced. That was when I could use my growing knowledge of her mind to add caution, direction or encouragement to the other elements at work in the experiment.
There is no doubt about it: what we were doing was experimental. There had never been a Princess of Wales in this position before. This was constitutional research, aimed at reaching a formula that would keep the Princess happy and fulfilled while at the same time keeping her safe from the pressures that had destroyed her marriage.
It is a caricature of the despot of legend that he can control the news he hears. One thing is entirely certain: there will never be any shortage of it and increasingly it will be tailored to suit the perceived preference of the recipient’s ear. In the months following the separation, the Princess was beset with advice good, bad and indifferent. Although I was sure she had the capacity to distinguish between the three, it was something else again to ask her to exercise it, especially when her life was already riddled with so many doubts.
Some of the advice she sought and received was of the highest quality – wise, humane, patient, and delivered with a rare understanding of her isolated predicament. The opinions of independent-minded observers such as Lynda Chalker, Sir David Puttnam, Lord Mishcon, Margaret Jay and Jacob Rothschild did nothing but good as far as I could see.
Rather less welcome from my point of view was my boss’s equal determination to seek opinions indiscriminately. Some of those she sought out were highly professional and offered good advice; others wished only to ingratiate themselves, peddle their own quack theories, or in other ways exploit her vulnerability.
Her quest for personal growth took her into a whole range of areas, including astrology, reflexology, colonic irrigation, massage, fitness training, soothsaying and psychoanalysis. Advice of wildly differing quality poured in. She was unrestrained in her appetite for it. Apart from her children and her public duties, I sometimes felt it took up the rest of her life. I am sure that in isolation many of the practitioners she consulted were sources of professional, honourable and valid advice, but in combination they represented a bewildering cocktail of emotional stimuli which robbed her of equilibrium at times of stress and dissipated her powers of concentration. They fed the paranoia that never lurked far below the well-groomed surface, and they provided as many opportunities for mischief as for wholesome thoughts and actions.
Some constructive issues did emerge from this period of self-absorption. Perhaps most significant as new subjects of interest were domestic violence, particularly against women, and eating disorders, a highly personal subject for the Princess.
A visit to the Chiswick Family Refuge in March 1993 was followed by several more in the course of the next two years. The charity’s director, the straight-talking Canadian Sandra Horley, seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the reasons behind the Princess’s new interest in the subject. Although she was socially at her best in male company and impatient of any female presence that might constitute rivalry, when it came to the humanita
rian side of her work, the Princess had a special sympathy for members of her own sex who had encountered types of unhappiness which she could recognize in herself.
She often betrayed a surprising lack of self-confidence, needing regular reassurance about her looks, importance and lovability. She may therefore have felt some subconscious affirmation of her own value by being in a position to bring comfort, even if only in the form of glamorous distraction, to women in even greater emotional need than herself. Their gratitude and appreciation was for the most part entirely genuine.
In motherhood, unhappy childhood and recent experience of marital strife, there was an enormous amount of common ground on to which the Princess briskly strode. She breezily joined discussion groups and toddler sessions with a range of contributions that was sometimes patronizing and sometimes expressive of her own neediness, but was always well intentioned and well received.
She would sit in a circle of women, all survivors of domestic abuse, her head cocked in the familiar attitude of sympathetic attention, prompting the assembled sisterhood with well-chosen bait: ‘Well ladies! We all know what men can be like, don’t we?’ The PPO and I would try to fade into the wallpaper. Mind you, I learned a great deal not intended for male ears from the animated discussions that followed.
The Refuge benefited in many ways from the Princess’s interest, which led also to her well-publicized attendance at a high-profile conference on the subject of domestic violence at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in 1994. By then, predictably, the Princess was beginning to believe that she was being exploited in some indefinable way. Unfortunately much of the early promise in the relationship eventually went unfulfilled.
Another long-term interest which developed at around this time was in the study and treatment of eating disorders, again particularly in young women. Dr Brian Lask of Great Ormond Street proved to be an ideal guide and companion for the Princess as she learned more about the problem on a visit to the hospital. From her questions then and from my own very amateur observations, I was never sure she had fully overcome her battle with bulimia. For her there was never going to be the prolonged period of stress-free contentment and security which, as I understood it, was a precondition for a complete cure.
This visit to Great Ormond Street led in April 1993 to the Princess giving what became a famous speech in Kensington Town Hall. For a time this brought the subject of eating disorders to the top of the public medical agenda. Incidentally, it also produced a postbag bulging with letters from young people affected by eating disorders or their anxious relatives.
As might be expected, a higher than usual proportion of that speech was contributed by the Princess herself, most memorably her description of the bulimic’s wish ‘to dissolve like a Disprin’. This, and the rather exaggerated style of delivery she adopted (the result of the unorthodox tuition methods of Peter Settelen), provided all the evidence the watching public needed that the Princess was ready to trade emotions with them whenever it was appropriate, and sometimes when it was not.
This endeared her to many who regretted the royal family’s image of emotional constipation. Conversely, of course, it provided further proof of her emotional incontinence to those who thought that the rest of the royal family had a healthier outlook in appearing to believe that emotion was something best indulged in private, if at all.
In the car on the way back from the engagement, the Princess was elated. Not only did she feel that she had spoken well, but also, after years of spectating on other people’s misfortunes, she had at last been able to speak about a subject of major medical importance from her own experience and thus from the heart. It made up for many of the occasions when she had been forced to invest her own emotions in other people’s words, in speeches she dreaded on subjects she did not fully understand. On this subject at least, she felt she could deal with the experts on their own terms – a rare and intoxicating experience for a royal public speaker.
Her elation was only heightened by Peter Settelen’s sudden appearance in front of the car, flagging down his pupil. ‘Not bad … for a whore!’ he shouted. She was delighted. So were the driver and I once she had explained, between giggles, that her speech-training included impersonating voices from dramatically varying walks of life.
After domestic violence and eating disorders, the Princess’s interests in those first days of freedom also included a continuing fascination with drink, drugs and mental health issues. As patron of Turning Point, she spoke at a conference in North London in June 1993 about the particular need for support for the plight of mentally ill women.
This was definitely not a lightweight Princess with time only for fashion, shopping and Duran Duran. She did not deny herself such necessary pleasures, but a quotation from her speech – provided by me but willingly adopted by her – perhaps best describes the other side of her mental equation: ‘It can take enormous courage for women to admit that they cannot cope … as their world closes in on them their self-esteem evaporates into a haze of loneliness and desperation.’ She could cope, and she wanted the world to see that she could; but she also wanted the world to see that it was not easy.
The conference was chaired by Libby Purves, from time to time a commentator on the Princess’s activities and one who did not shrink from criticism if she thought it warranted. From her opening remarks that day, however, it was plain that the Princess’s message about her own struggle was getting through. ‘[The Princess] is one of us,’ she said. ‘A wife, a mother, a daughter who has known problems in her own life and who has courageously used these experiences to comfort other people.’
On a lighter note, that spring also saw the Princess making the first of many well-publicized visits with her sons to public amusement parks, in this case Thorpe Park. Significantly, she seemed unsurprised when the photographers turned up to capture the touching scenes as she put on a display of unstuffy modern motherhood. It only reinforced the esteem in which the amusement-park-going section of the public generally held her. On the other hand, it also reinforced the contempt in which she was held by many of those who would never have dreamt of setting foot in such a place.
I wondered sometimes how many of the latter group tut-tutted quite as vigorously on the many occasions when the Prince fielded his sons for the cameras for much the same purpose, albeit on the banks of a Scottish river rather than on a water-splash ride at a public funfair. The same thought occurred to me when I read glib descriptions of the Princess seeking out the empty-headed company of Hollywood film stars, or priggish questions about her decision to take her sons to Disneyland. What would have been the critics’ response, I wondered, to the knowledge that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, when they were Duke and Duchess of York (to say nothing of the then Prince of Wales and the young Mountbatten), had spent rather longer in the company of movie people in Bohemian, pre-war Hollywood?
If, in the eyes of some, the Princess had a habit of choosing unsuitable forms of entertainment for her children, she also knew her obligations in the task of helping them establish strong relations with their own family. To this end, she regularly sought and received invitations to take them for tea with their grandmother the Queen.
After these meetings she would describe – with considerable affection but no little nervousness – her mother-in-law’s evident pleasure at the uncomplicated time spent chatting with the boys. Between the two women, however, there seemed to be no substantial communication. It was as if both wanted to be of help to the other, but somehow the barriers erected by upbringing and recent painful events could not be overcome.
The Princess also used these opportunities to express loyalty and give assurances about her wish to do no harm either to the institution or to her husband who would inherit it. These assurances were not always entirely sincere. To judge from the lack of effective rejoinder, they had also probably been heard too often in the past. Such was the Queen’s determination to remain above the Waleses’ bickering, of course, that she could
not be more forthcoming without her intervention being exploited by one side or the other.
For all that such restraint was statesmanlike, I think the Princess genuinely mourned the fact that her contact with the supreme family figure was confined to tea-time small talk. ‘She seems so small,’ she said, ‘and sad.’ This view did not stop her – or anybody else, for that matter – living in dread of the Queen’s disfavour. In the feuds that swirled continuously around the Palaces, I thought this ultimate threat was a sadly under-used peacemaker.
The Princess made time occasionally for other people’s families too. Giving little warning, one afternoon she called to make the acquaintance of my four-week-old daughter. Holding the gurgling and squirming cherub with all the experience conferred by years of hospital, crèche and nursery visits, the Princess laughed. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this,’ she said, ‘but she’s really squidgy isn’t she?’
Such an ability to laugh at herself – and about a subject that still must have embarrassed her deeply – displayed a good-natured humility that I knew she carried within her, but which was too often obscured by self-doubt, anxiety and the emotional brittleness they caused.
A constant backdrop to our lives as the year progressed, and a source of sneaking fascination to the Princess, was the biography of the Prince being written by Jonathan Dimbleby and the TV programme that was to accompany it. Throughout the summer of 1993, the BBC film crew was a regular sight around St James’s Palace and wherever the Prince’s travels took him.
Shadows of a Princess Page 40