Shadows of a Princess

I learned that, among other feelings he stirred in her, many of them still warm and affectionate, the Princess also felt fear. Except when she was roused with her own formidable brand of indignation, she would go to great lengths to avoid needlessly provoking the Prince. When she felt herself to be on the receiving end of his anger, before her characteristic defiance set in I often saw a look of trepidation cross her face, as if she were once again a small girl in trouble with the grown-ups. Though not his fault, I believe it joined with other fears deep within her to produce much of the temperamental instability that increasingly became his experience of her and from which, eventually, he would do anything to escape.

Speculating about the innermost secrets of the Waleses’ marriage has often been a national pastime, at least according to the media. There is a horrifying fascination about watching other people’s relationships disintegrating. The tour I had just finished had theoretically given me the chance to indulge such voyeuristic fascination at close range, but this was not an appropriate pastime for a member of staff.

The Prince and Princess were generally considerate enough with their staff and with each other to avoid all but a few public displays of their private problems. Whatever we staff saw or heard – including an obvious aversion for each other’s company in private – we played along with the image, to outsiders, subordinates and anyone else who might ask us for royal gossip. In fact, especially during the public acrimony of the separation a few years later, I often wondered if mine was the only dinner table in the country where the subject was banned.

By the time I awoke from an exhausted sleep on our homeward flight we were already over Italy. Far below, tiny lights reminded me of the existence of another world beyond the darkened aircraft and its dozing royal cargo. Outside this warm cocoon, like the chill air of the stratosphere, the real world waited. In time it would claim me back from princesses, palaces, caviar and good whisky.

That’s OK, I thought. I’m only here till my time’s up. Then the real world can have me back. But until then I’ll enjoy the ride. I settled lower into the broad, comfortable seat. Idly I noticed the embroidered logo. How thrifty of the RAF to acquire seats from the defunct British Caledonian Airways. I dozed again, joined in my dreams by uninvited air stewardesses in tartan uniforms.

Some part of my brain, however, continued obstinately to play and replay scenes from the tour. The images and the restless thoughts that accompanied them would not switch off. It was the start of a mental treadmill, conscious and subconscious, which still turns 10 years later.

This may have been because the people and issues involved demanded a huge commitment from anyone involved in running the Wales production. For me, given my background and idealistic personality, that commitment became total. Unfortunately, the problems we were beginning to encounter in sustaining the marriage and the public image were to prove insoluble. Soon, the knowledge that we were fighting a losing battle in an atmosphere that could not countenance failure sometimes became very bad for morale. My sense of total commitment then became focused on one person – the Princess – and that put too great a burden of expectation on us both.

Back in my snug seat on the VC-10, unhappy thoughts and dim glimpses of the future chased each other round my head. Some things stood out clearly, even if their accuracy and full significance would only emerge later.

When they were working together, the Prince and Princess created a dynamism that was phenomenal. I had seen examples of it during the tour, especially during formal ceremonial moments. The effect of their arrival at something as staid as a diplomatic banquet left me in no doubt about their power. The world’s most glamorous couple, the perfect mixture of regal gravitas and youthful beauty, could provoke a reaction among even the most jaded guests, inured to real emotion by years of protocol. I sat next to enough of these government hospitality veterans to observe the look of surprised, almost embarrassed awe – quickly suppressed – that this embodiment of living royalty inspired as it shone its two famous faces upon them.

Unfortunately, the stresses it laid on the owners of these public faces created powerful polarizing forces. These two egos were a match for any number of awestruck looks, and sharing the spotlight did not bring out the best in either of them. A reluctance to work as a team would inexorably drive them apart – he to resume a long-accustomed pattern of solo engagements, she to seek an undefined, independent new role.

It would be nice, but sadly false, to claim an inspired prescience about the events that were to follow. Based on my observations during the tour, however, added to what I had learned in a year at St James’s, even I could see that my employers seldom worked as a team any more. If the stars were uncomfortable sharing top billing, then it was logical to think that they might be happier not sharing the same spotlight.

Two contrasting images stayed in my mind. The first was a glimpse of intimacy which I had never seen before, and which I was never to see again. The VC-10 had landed at one of our many ports of call – I think it was Abu Dhabi. As the plane taxied sedately towards the waiting red carpet, band, guard of honour and ruling family, the usual controlled bedlam broke out inside. There was not the remotest chance that we would ‘remain seated until the captain has switched off the “fasten seatbelts” sign’, or heed similar airline-style safety sense. Half the cabin was on its feet before we had even turned off the runway.

Valet and dresser headed forward to the royal compartment to tend to their charges. The private secretary, waking violently from a well-deserved doze, began urgently reading his programme. The police were squinting through the portholes as if to satisfy themselves that no suicide bombers were lying obviously in wait, while anxiously trying to get their hand-held radios to talk sense. The press secretary was at another porthole, awkwardly trying to glimpse the position of the rat pack. It seemed that only the secretaries were calmly staying put, looking out at the latest stretch of baking tarmac and methodically gathering their cabin baggage.

Supercharged with energy, I was hunting in the back of the capacious travelling wardrobe – one of our more essential ‘extras’ which the RAF helpfully fitted into the aircraft to accommodate the yards of hanging luggage. It lay immediately aft of the royal compartment and through the partly open door the Prince and Princess could be seen conducting their more elegant version of the scenes in the main cabin. Scrabbling between the gently swaying, beautifully wrapped dresses and coats, I eventually found my ceremonial sword and stood up to buckle it on.

I was still tugging my tunic into place and trying to calm my accelerating pulse when, unseen by anyone else, I noticed the Prince lightly place a hand on the Princess’s hip. It was the kind of small, encouraging gesture that might pass between any happily married couple about to face a common ordeal.

I felt an unexpected glow that such things were still possible between them. This was only slightly diminished by the further observation that the touch lasted for only a moment, and was not reciprocated. Also, there was something about the angle of the hip – which was all I could see of her – that made me think the Princess did not welcome it.

The second image came from an incident, probably related, which occurred soon afterwards. As soon as the doors opened, the activity that had been fermenting in the confines of the aircraft’s fuselage burst out into the glaring sunshine, as the supporting cast hurried down the aft gangway in time to see the Prince and Princess regally descending the front steps. I paused by the cargo hold long enough to ensure that actual violence did not erupt between our forthright baggage master and those less Welsh sent to help him, before joining the rest of the entourage in the blessed cool of the royal terminal.

It was the usual procedure. In a symbolic act of welcoming courtesy, the royal host offered his guests coffee as they sat on ornate armchairs while, at right angles, the gaggle of accompanying officials from both sides sat opposite each other on long sofas. Into the space in the middle were shepherded the press corps, who had half a minute to take the sort of staged pictures that are the staple diet of mainstream reports on all such airport encounters. After the press were shooed out, a further awkward five minutes had to be filled with small talk while energetic old men in beards refuelled our coffee cups.

The royal host and his senior guest were sticking manfully to their scripts, while the rest of us thought it polite to pretend not to be able to hear the stilted pleasantries. Plainly uncomfortable, the Princess was not joining in either, nor was she being invited to by the Prince or her host.

She seemed to have created an invisible barrier around herself, as if to say that she was apart from the polite charade going on around her. To me she looked excluded and vulnerable. To the host as well, presumably, because eventually he leaned across the Prince to ask her politely what she was hoping to do during her visit. Under the unexpected attention she visibly brightened, perhaps thinking – as I was – of the serious programme we had arranged: visits to a day centre for mentally handicapped children, a clinic for immigrant women and a girls’ business studies class.

The Prince also turned towards her, looking as if he was seeing her for the first time, ruefully indulgent, patronizing. There was an expectant hush. Before she could reply, he said with studied innocence, ‘Shopping, isn’t it, darling?’

The words dropped into the marble stillness like bricks into plate glass. The Princess coloured, mumbled something inaudible and lapsed into silence. There was an awkward pause, broken by the Prince pointedly resuming his conversation with a host whose aquiline features now registered a politer version of the disbelief I felt.

When we were outside again I cornered John Riddell. ‘Did I see what I thought I saw in there?’ I asked him.

He looked at me pityingly. ‘Oh yes, Patrick. Indeed you did. That is the world we have to live in.’

Approaching Lyneham at the end of our flight home, I perched in the spacious cockpit of the VC-10 and watched the lights of Wiltshire villages slip under the plane’s nose. The Captain, a giant of a man, blocked much of the view as he sat hunched over the instrument panel. The controls seemed like toys in his huge hands as he gently followed directions from a radar controller on the ground.

The Navigator was timing our arrival to the second, giving a running countdown to the magical ‘Doors open’ order that I had heard repeated half a dozen times in the Gulf. I was always impressed by the RAF’s mastery of such precision. This time it was different, though. The doors would open not on to blazing tarmac and a red carpet but on to a patch of drizzly British concrete. There would be no sheikhs in flowing robes and no guard of honour. Instead there would be an anxious-looking RAF duty officer and the familiar Jaguar for the short drive to Highgrove. The contrast amused me. I wondered if it would amuse Him.

We landed exactly on time. Leaving the cockpit, I felt a sudden blast of damp English air as I passed the crewmen opening the door. After nearly two weeks of air conditioning and hot desert dust, it smelt delicious. As I entered the royal compartment the Prince was peering out of the porthole. He looked up and I fell into the familiar routine for arrival at a tour destination.

‘This is Lyneham, Sir, in England. The outside temperature is 5°. The ruler is not waiting at the foot of the steps. There is no guard of honour to inspect and the band will not play the anthems. There is no press position on either the left or the right of the red carpet. In fact, there is no carpet. But there is your car, Sir, and it will take you home.’

The Prince’s mouth twitched in what I hoped was fulsome approval of my uproarious joke. Well, it had been worth a try. With a brief word of thanks he headed for the door. The ever-present valet held out an overcoat and I silently saluted the planning that had brought it magically to hand after 10 days in the desert. Then he was gone into the night. Gone to Highgrove and the familiarity of house and garden, of dogs and books and pictures, and a welcome we all knew would not be his wife’s.

FIVE

DOUBLE TAKE

I returned home exhausted and several pounds lighter, not least thanks to an energetic desert stomach bug. The Princess welcomed me back like a wandering stray and wrote me a typically generous note of appreciation. For a day or two I recuperated in the knowledge that I had survived my first tour, which had been generally recognized as a pretty challenging initiation.

Media coverage of the tour had been extensive. Still a novice, I took an immature pride in the glossy magazine stories and the TV special that followed in the days after our return. Somehow, I felt, it would not have been possible without me – which may have been true, but only to a very limited extent.

Not featured in the glossies but of growing interest to tabloid commen-tators was the state of The Marriage. I had seen some of its internal stresses while on tour – however careful the Prince and Princess were to keep their troubles to themselves, being ‘on the road’ always accentuated differences that could be smoothed over more easily at home – and already the media sharks had scented blood in the water. They would not remain hungry for long.

To compensate for the lack of united leadership at the top, the Wales support organization had for some time been making its own arrangements to adapt to the unpalatable truth. Huge amounts of energy were diverted into concealing the real state of the marriage, and still more were expended on structuring our bosses’ public lives to minimize friction between them. It is a tempting but pointless exercise to imagine what more could have been achieved if this energy had been available to support the global influence of a Prince and Princess who were able to work as a team.

My introduction to these realities had occurred during a visit by the Prince and Princess to the Glasgow Garden Festival in my early days in office in May 1988. Not unusually, Their Royal Highnesses had been apart in the days preceding the engagement but obviously had to appear as a couple, if not happily, then at least willingly united when they arrived at the Festival. They therefore made their ways in separate aircraft to what, fortunately, turned out to be a simultaneous rendezvous at Glasgow airport. Logistically this was no mean feat, but, as I came to realize, the Queen’s Flight, the police and the respective staffs were not short of practice in this manoeuvre.

On the flight to Scotland I had been conscious of a heightened tension, but in my happy lack of awareness had ascribed it only to the prospect of an exciting day in the sunshine in front of what were sure to be huge crowds. Later, I came to recognize the nervous giggles interspersed with brooding introversion as characteristic of the Princess’s agitation at the prospect of working with her husband. Also, it was only later that I realized the significance of her frequent trips to the royal loo. ‘Bulimia’ was a word I did not even know how to spell in 1988.

John Riddell was in charge of the engagement. As ever, his charm and studied absent-mindedness produced the intended mood of amused tolerance in the Princess as we arrived in Glasgow. Inside, he must have felt he was defusing a ticking time bomb. In this he was like many senior courtiers who lacked the benefit of regular contact with her – their understandable inclination was to treat her like a beautifully wrapped parcel of unstable Semtex. His only acknowledgement of the unspoken matrimonial drama which waited on the tarmac was to smile reassuringly at her as we left the plane and say, ‘Let’s hope we all reach the end of the day in the same happy mood we started it in!’

In bright sunshine the Prince and Princess met by their aircraft, brushed cheeks for a fraction of a second and climbed into their car. The day was a success. The beautiful weather, happy crowds and grand scale of the event perfectly set off their own professionalism.

They were an unbeatable double act who could anticipate each other’s moves, instinctively work a crowd and betray by neither a word nor a gesture the fact that they would jump back in their separate planes as soon as duty released them. In the brief moments of semi-privacy, however, away from all but the familiar company of their staffs, they might have been on separate engagements. Not a word or a glance passed between them.

Only the atmosphere of relief on the homeward journey, and the veiled references to disaster averted, alerted my novice’s consciousness to the fact that we were playing a game. There was only one rule: nothing must be said to disturb the myth of permanence that was now the marriage’s only certainty.

Competition between the stars of our show was never far below the surface, and set-piece joint events usually brought it into the open. A garden party at Buckingham Palace was the perfect opportunity for some rather pointed sparring. For those of us who saw beyond the myth this was entertaining too, in a painful way.

It was the sort of obligatory event that went into the Princess’s diary automatically, at least twice every year. However much she denied it, I think she secretly rather looked forward to these occasions. The reason was not hard to find. It came to me at the start of one afternoon’s proceedings, as I paraded in my top hat and tails at the edge of the Buckingham Palace lawn along with other members of the Prince and Princess’s senior household. At our backs a lawn the size of a football pitch was crowded with a multicoloured mob of deserving guests from all walks of life throughout the Commonwealth.

Three approximately equal gangways had been carved through this crowd by Beefeaters in full ceremonial dress. The idea was that three royal couples would descend the steps from the Buckingham Palace Bow Room door on to the lawn and split up, one couple per lane. They would then proceed through the crowd at a slow pace towards their reward: tea in a special marquee at the other end of the lawn with members of the diplomatic community.

In effect, it was a time-honoured and rather formal version of the walkabout which I had come to know so well on the streets of provincial Britain. This time, however, the sun was shining, the crowds were all in their Sunday best, if not better, and the Princess was dressed in clothes she might happily have appeared in on Ladies’ Day at Ascot. In other words, despite the formal royal setting and order of events and ceremonies which had changed little since Victoria’s time, here was a chance for the Princess to do what she did best, in front of an audience drawn from those she sometimes saw as her greatest critics, namely other members of the royal family.

Apart from the Queen, who was naturally the symbolic focus of all attention, with her Palace as a backdrop and her Guards band playing her anthem, no one outshone the Princess. She stood statuesquely, slightly to one side, eyes demurely downcast, an object of wonder and curiosity, holding the gaze of several thousand eyes.

She and the Prince decorously descended the steps on to the lawn and the show began. The private secretary bowed, I bowed, we all bowed. The Prince looked grumpy, the Princess looked radiant. Then I detected a wicked edge to the radiance. It came, I was sure, from the certain knowledge that she was about to outshine her husband in public and intended to derive no little amusement from the task.

She winked at me and I fell into step slightly behind her. She took the right-hand side of the lane and the Prince took the left. The Prince’s equerry and I then spent the next 45 minutes striding back and forth ahead of our royal charges, ensuring that some 30 or so preselected guests were hauled to the front of the crowd and made to stand prominently so that they could receive the handshake they had been promised.

We sometimes darted further ahead to where the Queen’s comptroller stood at the confluence of the three lanes, marching back and forth and looking important – something he did very well, except that he glanced at his watch rather too often. He had the tricky task of trying to arrange for the occupants of all three lanes to arrive simultaneously at the door of the tea tent. It was a practically impossible task, because each of the six royal runners had their own technique for working the crowd and their rate of advance was anything but uniform. Nevertheless, he had to try and we had to try to help him.

After a few years of garden parties it dawned on me that there was only one game for the Princess more amusing than putting her husband in the shade for the afternoon, and that was frustrating her equerry’s artful attempts to make her hurry up or slow down in order to fall in with the comptroller’s master plan.

It was hard enough trying to make the Waleses co-ordinate speeds even in their own lane. One year the couple were particularly at odds and their progress had been anything but co-ordinated. With something approaching panic, I watched the Queen finish her lane and start to make her way towards the tea tent. We were going to be very late.

‘You’re going to be very late!’ the comptroller snapped at me and I returned fretfully to my lane, trying to look blasé on the outside while feeling like an incompetent sheepdog on the inside.

I went to explain the problem to the Prince’s equerry. Once again demonstrating that alarming ability which all royal people seemed to possess, the Prince overheard our muttered conversation, taking place some 20 feet behind him. ‘I didn’t know it was a race.’ The words were flung peevishly over his shoulder.

Immediately I relaxed, reminding myself once again of that saying attributed to Balfour: ‘Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.’ It was a piece of wisdom I sometimes wished had been carved in illuminated letters 10 feet high across the whole facade of Buckingham Palace. It was a valuable lesson, and one which the Prince had evidently learned many years before, at least in relation to garden parties. I duly received a black look from the comptroller for spoiling the perfection of his arrangements, but he recognized the notorious independent-mindedness of the Waleses and was in any case already thinking about tea; and so, soon afterwards, was I.

Hot on the heels of the garden party came another set-piece event at which the aim of portraying our household as one big happy family came rather closer to success. This was the annual Highgrove staff barbecue. Awnings were pitched on the Highgrove lawn, external caterers were brought in with superior bangers and steaks, and the Prince and Princess vied with each other to play gracious and relaxed host to their hundred or so staff and their guests.

The Princess was in her element. In a casual outfit which looked as though it had come straight from the set of a jeans advert, she worked the crowd as if this were a superior sort of walkabout. Most of the faces were familiar to her, of course. I watched as she adjusted her demeanour according to whether she pigeonholed the person she was speaking to as (1) friendly and therefore deserving proprietorial in-humour, or (2) potentially hostile and therefore marked down for commiserating good humour, on this occasion anyway, or (3) neutral between the two camps. For those in the last category she reserved her most winning smile of all.

Everyone seemed to be hyped up – the employees because their pleasure at feeling they were getting something from the management for free was moderated by the knowledge that they were still under royal surveillance, as they consumed as much food and drink as they decently could. They were also, in many cases, showing off for the benefit of their guests, who were either partners or family. For their part, most of the guests were overawed by being welcomed to Highgrove, which they knew was first and foremost a private residence. The Princess was vigorously marshalling her support and I, for one, was keeping a watchful eye on the progress of her own version of an internal MORI opinion poll. The only person who seemed truly relaxed was the Prince, not least because the event gave him another opportunity to take small groups of reverential employees on guided tours of the gardens which were his consuming interest.