I adopted an attitude of faintly amused cynicism, which may explain why the one scene they shot in which I was a contributor never made it beyond an early edit. This entertained the Princess hugely. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘Next time they’re filming, I’ll make a grand entrance to the office for one of our meetings. Then I can poke my head round the Prince’s door and say, “Hope you’re going to let me get a word in!”’ Sadly this bit of fun never got beyond the planning stage. It would not have harmed the ratings.
I could understand the temptation of producing what in effect would be a counter to the Morton revelations of the year before. What was more, it would be a counter which had the authority of one of the most respected names in broadcasting. It also centred on a subject who embodied duty and traditional royal values in a way that could not have contrasted more sharply with the unstable, bulimic, suicidal Princess of Diana: Her True Story.
It was unfortunate that, particularly under the pressure it was then encountering, the Prince’s organization took itself so extremely seriously. It probably still does. In palaces or parliaments, there is nothing like the presence of TV cameras to feed the desire to take oneself very seriously indeed. Like so many other people offered the poisoned chalice of fly-on-the-wall-style television documentary, the Prince’s office seemed to think that all they had to do was let people into the secret of what went on behind the Palace walls for the viewers to feel as enthused about it all as the people who worked there.
This delusion was not helped by the opportunities the programme offered for some of the Prince’s advisers to promote their own portfolios. In courts there is always competition for a prominent place in the latest pet project. Intoxicated with a wonderful sense of the importance conferred by their positions and by heady draughts of royal proximity, it seemed surprisingly hard for them to understand that, beyond vulgar curiosity, such sights held little appeal for anybody who was not naturally attracted to that sort of thing.
Given the situation in which we found ourselves, the atmosphere in our cramped office corridors was charged enough. The addition of camera crews with accompanying lights, sound men and important clipboards only exaggerated the sense of drama. The experience was made no more pleasant by the knowledge that, although it was never officially admitted, the main purpose was to create a favourable public impression of the Prince with all the resources that his staff, archives and associated patronages could muster.
I realized that it would be unwise to lend the project any co-operation that could justify a subsequent claim to be the authoritative account of the previous two years’ events. I was therefore dismayed to find that the Queen’s office had agreed to review parts of the book, even if only unofficially. I spoke to Robert Fellowes of my fear that the project would acquire the status of the authorized record on some events – especially relating to the Waleses’ separation – that were very much in dispute. I think he shared my concern. He was certainly at pains to reassure me that no such impression was intended. Regrettably, the distinction between informal fact-checking and official endorsement never made it to the book’s acknowledgements list, where several of the Queen’s top advisers, past and present, figure prominently.
It mattered a great deal to those who engineered Dimbleby’s account that it should be seen as authoritative. On matters of architecture, the environment, the Prince’s Trust and his early life, I have no doubt that it turned out to be just that. Nonetheless, I resisted the Dimbleby team’s attempts to acquire input on the Princess’s behalf – even when they came in the form of a delightful lunch prepared for me by Jonathan himself at his home. No co-operation at all seemed to me to be the safest option.
When the great work was almost complete, however, through mutual friends I helped bring about a meeting between the Princess and Jonathan Dimbleby over lunch. My intention in arranging this encounter was to confront him with the reality of what she was like so that he could compare it dispassionately with what he had been told by sources close to the Prince. This, I mischievously hoped, might at least pull a brick from the foundations of the edifice created for his benefit. After months immersed in her husband’s correspondence, organizations, supporters and friends, he would, I reasoned, have formed a fairly clear picture of her. It was my intention to show him that large parts of it were demonstrably false, or at least incomplete.
I am pretty sure that this objective was achieved. The Princess put on a great performance in which regality and informality were mixed in proportions that would frustrate the most determined critic. She ate her lunch with obvious enthusiasm and laughingly sympathized with Dimbleby’s Herculean task on the Prince’s behalf. After she had departed in a cloud of fond farewells, I caught on Jonathan’s face the dazed look familiar to me from so many others who had just received her dazzling best.
Having had a chance to judge her at first hand, he was asked, did it affect the impression he had gained from what he had been told? To me he seemed momentarily uncomfortable and I recall his reply was along these lines: ‘If I can’t believe what I’ve been told about her … then I can’t believe any of it.’ Amen, I thought. Although his research had probably already brought him to a conclusion he no longer felt able to change, the encounter with the Princess, if nothing else, must have caused some head-scratching in the Prince’s office.
‘What about a biography of the Princess?’ someone asked.
Dimbleby laughed. ‘That would require another lifetime!’
In July we set off to Zimbabwe on another of the Princess’s major set-piece tours. Following the established pattern, it was long on hard work and atmospheric photo opportunities and short on protocol.
As with all the Princess’s overseas tours now, I took trouble to make sure that the Queen was acquainted with the proposed programme in some detail. Most importantly, this helped to build a sense of confidence between the Princess and her mother-in-law and between their offices. It also helped me in my continuing battle to help the Princess see that she could enjoy practically all the independence she wanted and still keep what she referred to as ‘the system’ informed of what she was doing. I hoped this would create the foundations for long-term healing of the wounds inflicted by the previous summer.
The move also neatly outflanked any predatory attempts by the Prince’s supporters to claim that the Princess was acting irresponsibly, or to the detriment of the monarchy or national interests overseas. This was an ever-present risk, and one which was still being demonstrated two years later when several establishment figures went public to condemn the Princess’s visit to Argentina as proof that she was ‘a loose cannon’. The fact that the Queen had approved the programme and the further fact that in my pocket I had a letter from the Secretary of State lending his support might have made them think twice. Then again, forcing them as it would to make a complete reappraisal of the Princess in their own minds, perhaps it would have been asking too much.
Previously the Princess had resisted attempts on my part to persuade her to visit Africa, scene of so much of the work carried out by her charities and much of it also with long, historical connections to the Crown. Her reason was simple. Africa was the Princess Royal’s territory and she was not prepared to risk treading on anybody’s toes. Before we went to Zimbabwe, therefore, as well as consulting the Queen, the Princess took the trouble to ensure that there was no objection from her sister-in-law.
By now the organization for transporting the Princess around the world on her tours was becoming quite slick. Certainly, I could never let my concentration slip when it came to domestic arrangements for my boss and her staff, but the overall spirit of teamwork, happy co-operation and flexibility, mixed with fun at every opportunity (suitable and otherwise), was in stark contrast to my early, stressful experiences of trying to organize joint tours.
In large part, this improved morale was due to the Princess’s own attitude. A royal boss who endured long flights, unfamiliar food, unconventional plumbing and the exigencies of a co
ncentrated programme without complaining was a joy to work for. It was also the private secretary’s ideal and therefore probably unrealistic. On the major solo tours that we did together, however, the Princess came very close to it – most of the time.
In return, what her ideal of a private secretary would have been for such trips, I never discovered. I very evidently fell some way below it one night in Zimbabwe when there was a problem with her speech. Actually it was a problem with an antique fax machine, but this detail had no chance of being acknowledged by the Princess in her current mood. I could see she was brewing up into a state of self-pitying indignation, but I could not think of any obvious explanation.
This was worrying. I could not even begin to defuse the bomb until I discovered what had started it ticking. I consoled myself with the hope that her moodiness might just be a sign that everything else was going too smoothly for her liking.
The bomb kept ticking. It had been a long evening in a hot and overcrowded reception, during which old white Rhodesian society rubbed shoulders happily with the new black ascendancy in the scramble to shake the Princess’s hand. In the good-natured mêlée, the Princess initially missed the fact that her sister Sarah – lady-in-waiting for the trip – was no longer hovering attentively in the vicinity as normal practice required.
Then suddenly the simmering mood came to a boil. ‘Patrick!’ hissed the Princess, sandwiched between two burly Rhodesian farmers and a Land Rover salesman. ‘Will you get Sarah, please? I saw her talking to the rat pack. And what are they doing in here?’ She had me on that one. I had also been surprised to discover that our media friends had got into what was supposed to be a carefully controlled gathering.
As directed, I found Sarah sharing a quick cigarette with the press party, some of whom had craftily acquired tickets. Dislodging her with some difficulty from conversation with Richard Kay of the Daily Mail, I steered her back to our besieged leader. It was too late. The impression of being abandoned had taken root and for the rest of the evening nothing could be right.
I was still wondering about it when we arrived back at the High Commissioner’s residence. ‘Patrick, I’m very unhappy!’ the Princess said reproachfully over her shoulder as she retired to bed. The High Commissioner and his wife and much of the surrounding wildlife pretended politely not to hear.
‘Well Ma’am,’ I said, thinking again of the scene at the crowded reception and managing to look slightly rebellious, ‘I’m not happy either.’ Her thanks and goodnight wishes came down to us in a snort.
In these circumstances it was usually possible to seek solace in a drink with the policemen and the lady-in-waiting. One glance at the elder Spencer persuaded me to make this an all-boys affair, for that evening at least. We retaliated the following night, however, by singing enthusiastically around the High Commission’s grand piano until the Princess was forced to descend from her bedroom to complain about the noise. Then she allowed herself to be cajoled into joining us.
There were other minor hiccups too. As before on joint tours, the subject of official gifts still had the potential for trouble. After a long, hot day touring a refugee camp in the east of the country near the Mozambique border, we returned to Harare for a well-earned rest. The crew of the President’s aircraft, which we had been lent for the trip, formed up at the foot of the steps to bid her farewell.
In the cabin I confronted a Princess who had packed up for the day. ‘Ma’am, the crew are lined up at the bottom of the ladder. Perhaps you’d like to give the Captain a set of your cufflinks?’
I had them ready in a smart blue box. VIP pilots all over the world must have cupboards full of such trinkets, but in their own way these gestures were as important as the formal portrait photographs given to Ministers and Ambassadors. This pilot had done more than most, too, landing us smoothly on bush strips and with a punctuality that would have earned respect from the Queen’s Flight itself.
I could see the complaint building in her eyes. When it came it was familiar. ‘Why does everybody want something from me? Why am I expected to give all the time?’
This required a fuller answer than the circumstances allowed. In a change of style, I did not wheedle her into making the presentation (which, incidentally, would have cost her nothing). Instead I just said, ‘OK then,’ and slipped the box back into my pocket.
At once she was mollified. ‘All right, Patrick. I s’pose I’d better do what’s expected of me.’ She did just that, giving our Captain an extra-long chat and an extra-white smile, just to show that she regretted her private professional lapse.
Such minor presentations were sometimes resented by the Princess because they were a reminder of the kind of formal protocol she disliked. The incident made me ponder on the purpose of such gestures, which I saw as harmless ‘thank-yous’ but which my boss would occasionally see as a real irritant.
The general question of protocol was quite a simple one for me. Its origin, I imagined, lay in the mists of time when our cave-dwelling ancestors presumably went to some trouble to appease and flatter visiting chiefs of other tribes. Out of deference to the restraint which, though unstipulated, I deduced was the Queen’s wish in such matters, I always played down suggestions from our hosts (many of whom loved the sight of a splendid guard and band at the airport) that there should be anything much in the way of overt ceremony laid on for the Princess.
In the same way, I did not seek meetings with heads of state or government as a matter of right. This would have been to test too far the deliberately ambivalent guidance about representing the Queen abroad. If the head of state himself proposed such a meeting, however – and few could resist the photo opportunity it provided for them – I did not fall over myself to turn it down because of quibbles over the Princess’s precise status. It was far better and more courteous, I thought, to allow such invitations to be fulfilled.
It was certainly far more worthwhile. One photograph with a smiling leader more than made up for 20 minutes inspecting a guard of honour and if there was any doubt about this, a smiling Robert Mugabe (or Carlos Menem or Jacques Chirac) readily proved its truth. Especially Robert Mugabe: ‘She brings a little light into your life … naturally you feel elated, you feel good!’ he beamed at the press pack. It put our protocol problems – wondering how much fuss the press would make about the presence or absence of the national anthem – into perspective.
In any case, protocol was not what the tour was about. In its content, the Zimbabwe tour covered familiar ground, with the Red Cross, Help the Aged and the Leprosy Mission all providing high-quality projects for the Princess to visit and the world’s cameras to admire. The subject of AIDS – both then and now a devastating blight on a whole generation of African children – was given particular prominence. Late one evening we visited a hospice for orphaned children with AIDS. None was over five. None was expected to reach the age of six. The Princess wept.
What was especially heartening was the new spirit of co-operation the tour had demonstrated between the Princess’s major charities. Combined receptions were held in honour of all three and the shared experience produced a valuable crop of further co-operative ventures for the Princess to consider on future tours. The presence on such occasions of the charities’ top management – faces familiar from a hundred small projects back home – added to the value the Princess gained from what would otherwise have been quite fleeting experiences in the townships and countryside of Zimbabwe. Since she rightly saw them as allies, such encounters also added to her confidence.
Another encouraging sign for me was the appearance among the press pack of correspondents from the serious broadsheets. Previously, if they came on what were characteristically tabloid outings, they would usually content themselves with essentially light-hearted accounts either of the press pack itself or the effect on the local social life of the appearance of such a glamorous figure from overseas.
This time there was a small but significant change. Robert Hardman, who was the Daily Teleg
raph’s respected court correspondent and generally thought to be more aligned with those who treated the Princess with suspicion, wrote a thoughtful and constructive account of her visit to Zimbabwe. In a report dated 14 July, he compared it with the Princess Royal’s contrasting style and found that both had merit.
The latest tour has been a public relations triumph not just for her favourite charities but for the Princess herself. Africa, until now the undisputed realm of the Princess Royal, has a new champion. Were they ever to arrive at a refugee camp at the same time one could picture the Princess of Wales heading straight for the nearest cluster of ailing children and the Princess Royal marching over to the person in charge for an update on the sanitation.
Elsewhere in the article Hardman wrote, ‘Visits are vital if the Princess is to maintain her world profile and thus continue the work she sees as her mission. But she will need to use them sparingly and vary the diet. Too much of what cynics call the Mother Teresa routine could lead to compassion indigestion by the media, however well choreographed it all is.’
I highlighted this paragraph and sent it to the Princess. She wrote beside it, ‘I totally agree – change of diet is very important!’ We duly kept the diet as varied as possible, but the link with Mother Teresa proved irresistible to the press. To be fair, the Princess herself did very little to discourage it.
SIXTEEN
SOLO
In the summer of 1993 the Princess holidayed with her children at Disneyworld in Florida, undeterred by the barrage of criticism fired at her by the old guard. She jealously protected the time she spent with her boys and reacted with uncompromising hostility to anything that threatened it.
It was at about this time that Tiggy Legge-Bourke was introduced into the uncertain atmosphere of the Waleses’ family life. Being the Prince’s appointment – and very much involved with the children on his behalf – she and I had very few points of direct contact. Early in her time at St James’s, however, she did come to see me and probably rather unwisely I gave her a version of the briefing that I gave to all newcomers about the importance of not believing too much in the esteem of our employers.
Shadows of a Princess Page 41