Читать книгу Shadows of a Princess - Patrick Jephson - Страница 13
ОглавлениеOnce I had achieved a shaky confidence in organizing the Princess’s UK engagements, I could look forward to the challenge of planning her overseas visits. I remembered pictures I had seen of the Princess looking cool and compassionate in a dozen exotic foreign locations. This, I thought, would be where my new job started to become a bit more glamorous. The reality, of course, was that it took a lot of very unglamorous hard work to reach the media-friendly results that she – and her public – expected.
I have always taken undue pleasure even from aimless travel, and to be offered transport and accommodation on such a royal scale and be paid to indulge my puerile desire seemed the best part of the job description. During my early days at St James’s I heard an endless travelogue of tour stories, some of dizzying tallness. As I was to learn, even in exaggerated form these tales struggled to convey the reality of transporting our royal circus to foreign countries. Not to be outdone, over the years I developed my own improbable repertoire of traveller’s yarns from which, if nothing else, my audiences learned that the overseas tour encapsulated in concentrated form all the best and worst aspects of life with the Waleses.
Tours were a big challenge for our royal employers too. The task of representing the country overseas as a kind of super-ambassador makes great demands on their reserves of diplomacy, tact, confidence and patience – not to mention the royal sense of humour, digestion and general physical and mental constitution. There are therefore big demands for both external comforts and internal strength. These must somehow be supplied from the foreign surroundings in which duty has deposited the royal traveller and from internal resources, reinforced by years of heredity and training. However gilded the cage, though, no guest palace provides the familiar, reassuring touches of home.
To help achieve the external comforts, the Waleses usually travelled with a surprisingly large entourage. On one of my first tours the party totalled 26. As well as more senior officials such as private secretaries and press secretaries, the cast included a doctor, four policemen, three secretaries, a butler, a valet, an assistant valet, a dresser, an assistant dresser, two chefs and a hairdresser.
Not surprisingly, we also needed a baggage master to look after the small mountain of luggage. In order to achieve the desired result of making the Prince and Princess feel that their temporary accommodation was a real ‘home from home’, an extraordinary amount of personal kit had to be carried with us. Everything from music equipment to favourite organic foods had their special containers – and came high on the list of priorities.
In-flight meals were seldom straightforward either. In later years when travelling on solo tours, the Princess was happy enough to choose from standard airline menus. This also applied to journeys with the Queen’s Flight, who usually found reliable airline caterers whatever the exotic destination. Before the separation, however, the Princess took a leaf out of her husband’s rather more fastidious book, and while their accompanying staff demolished the output of the British Airways first-class flight kitchen, our employers would pick at home-grown organic concoctions in Tupperware boxes like pensioners on an outing. They were a lot slimmer and fitter than most of us, of course, but it still looked like a pretty joyless experience.
Meanwhile, host government officials, Embassy staff and senior members of the Wales household (the collective term for private secretaries and other top management) laboured to produce a programme befitting the stature of the visitors. The planes, boats, trains and cars – as well as the cameras, crowds, guards of honour and banquets – combined to create the overall theatrical effect without which no royal visit can be really royal. Adjusted for scale, the same principles apply equally to a visit to a crèche as much as to a continent. Add the scrutiny of the press and the unpredictability of foreign hosts’ resources, and it is little wonder that touring is seen as one of the greatest tests royal service can provide. Little wonder either that it demands the full set of royal stage props to achieve its full effect.
Every month or so a list of forthcoming engagements was circulated in the office. For many excellent reasons it was treated as a confidential document, though whether to thwart terrorists or merely to baffle the Queen’s Flight was never fully explained. Its colloquial name was Mole News, since it was assumed that its list of dates and places would form the leaker’s basic fare. By the time of my arrival, however, the leaking was beginning to emanate from more exalted sources such as royal ‘friends’ and other thinly disguised mouthpieces for the Prince and Princess themselves. Eventually Mole News practically lost its original innocent purpose as a simple planning aid and became instead just another piece on the board game of misinformation in the intelligence war between them. As they drew up their diaries with more and more of an eye to the media impact of their activities, information on each other’s future movements became vital in the popularity contest that they were both beginning to wage.
Soon after my arrival I had scanned this programme eagerly, looking for my first chance of an overseas trip. Disappointingly it seemed that I would have to wait almost a year before I could join the veterans whose briefcases sported the tour labels which I so coveted. I was scheduled to accompany Their Royal Highnesses on a tour of the Gulf States in March 1989. At least, I thought, it was a part of the world I knew slightly and liked a lot. Also it would be hot and I would at last have an excuse to wear that expensive tropical uniform – the preferred choice of most officers who had seen Top Gun.
In Mole News joint engagements were indicated with an asterisk. What had not yet been widely noticed, however, was that asterisks were becoming a rarity. In fact, by the late eighties joint appearances at home were already mostly confined to set-piece events such as the Queen’s Birthday Parade, the Garter Ceremony, Ascot and the staff Christmas lunch. The same trend of disappearing asterisks was visible in the overseas programme. Solo expeditions had always been a feature of royal overseas work, but the Waleses were noticeably beginning to make more and more of their overseas trips alone. This was bad for publicity – it just fuelled rumours about the state of the marriage – but for staff in the firing line it was also a bit of a relief. The coup de grâce was finally administered to joint tours by the Korea trip of November 1992, but the signs of a terminal divergence of interest were already perceptible in January 1989 when I joined the Gulf recce party at Heathrow.
Just as joint engagements gave the Prince and Princess the chance to work together (however reluctantly), so they drew their respective staffs into cautious co-operation. When they were on form, we saw our employers put on a double act which carried the world before it. For our part, we enjoyed the opportunity to put aside the growing estrangements of the office and reclassify our differences as merely interesting variations of technique.
The Prince’s team provided the lead. Under the direction of the private secretary or his deputy, His Royal Highness’s press secretary and senior personal protection officer (PPO) were joined by either his own or his wife’s equerry, depending on whose turn it was to swap the pressures of the St James’s office for the pressures of its temporary foreign equivalent. On the tour itself this would mean that I would primarily be in attendance on the Prince, particularly if any of the engagements called for military uniform to be worn. The Princess would take a lady-in-waiting and forgo the services of her equerry unless he could negotiate his absence from the Prince’s entourage, a loss which His Royal Highness bore with increasing fortitude as time passed.
The gloss on my picture of royal tours soon began to look pretty patchy. I would be junior boy on the recce team – the private secretary’s scribe, memory and general bag-carrier. On the tour I would also be responsible for transport, accommodation, the travelling office and a million undefined administrative details. The horrifying truth slowly dawned that I would take the rap for the great majority of potential cock-ups, and so it proved.
I found myself treading on eggshells even before I had left the UK. Taking leave of the Princess was never easy, even when going abroad ‘on duty’ as I would be for this recce. Arrivals and departures were important to her. They were landmarks in an otherwise monotonous landscape of public and private routine. They presented opportunities for her to make a point. The simple exchanges involved often gained an extra theatrical value as she expressed delight with a greeting or wistful regret at a parting. Her natural ability to influence moods was at its strongest when first and last impressions could be created. This was a characteristic ideally suited to the life of transitory encounters that she led in public.
Also, I found that I missed her. This was partly sentiment – employed to serve and, metaphorically, to defend her, I sometimes felt a vague sense of negligence if separated from her for long. As I grew less impressionable, this was supplemented by a healthy suspicion of what she might be doing or saying in my absence.
In her moments of greatest doubt, any absence for any reason could be exploited to support a passing prejudice. Thus going away on holiday could provoke an envy bordering on resentment, apparently impervious to her own frequent absences on ski slopes or beaches. She paid lip service to the need for staff ‘R and R’, but seldom missed a chance to make you feel just a little bit guilty for taking it. Going away on recces was scarcely less suspect. Even when I knew I was heading for a tough recce far from home in an inhospitable land, she somehow managed to make me feel like a truant, if not an actual deserter.
She would look up wearily from a desk that had suddenly become conspicuously crowded and give me a well-practised, reproachful look. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on you’ – by which she meant her – ‘to be sending you away. We’re so busy at the moment.’ (We were always ‘so busy’.)
‘Well, Ma’am, you know I can’t get out of it – I’m duty for this tour. And everything’s up to date here …’ She looked meaningfully at the papers on her desk. ‘And I won’t be away for long. I’ll phone.’
‘That would be nice.’
‘And take pictures. Then you can see what I’m letting you in for!’
‘Hmm.’
That was obviously an idea too far. I had failed to lighten the atmosphere and it took the application of several airline gin and tonics to ease the feeling that I was abandoning her.
That feeling never entirely left me and, if anything, it got worse as the years passed and her position in the hierarchy began to be threatened. She once memorably had me paged at Heathrow as I was about to leave for a decidedly non-recreational recce of Japan. Expecting some nameless catastrophe, I took her call with a heavy heart. She knew exactly where I was and that I was about to miss my plane, yet she spent 10 minutes cross-examining me on a minor diary item months in the future. Of course I had none of the paperwork with me and my memory refused to come to my rescue in the crisis. From her voice, the Princess’s loneliness was transparently obvious, even when expressed in the reassuringly familiar format of chiding her scatterbrained private secretary. A call that began with contrived recrimination ended with genuine good wishes for my success and a quick return. No wonder I felt a heel.
Especially when feeling beleaguered – not uncommon – she would sometimes wonder aloud whether a protection officer could not achieve just as much as the private secretary now shuffling in front of her, visibly champing for his club-class dinner. In some households it was true that an experienced PPO could more than adequately organize security, logistics and even domestic arrangements, but the requirements of the Waleses and their entourage demanded attention to a range and depth of subjects that were beyond the reasonable capacities of any single person.
Local British Embassies could also not be expected to shoulder more than the already considerable extra workload our visits entailed. A sensible rule was therefore followed by all with responsibility for royal programmes: ‘Never recce anything you’re not going to visit, but never visit anything you haven’t recced.’ There was nothing more unsettling than arriving blind at an unknown destination for a high-profile engagement.
The other golden rule – ‘Avoid surprises’ – was one you broke at your peril. Whatever the hardships (or compensations), everything that could be recced was recced, regardless of raised eyebrows from envious office-bound colleagues or royal employers scenting a skive. The office folklore of recce excesses provided rich pickings for anyone wishing to believe that these foreign planning trips were not all work and no play. In due course I could add to them myself, albeit discreetly.
It was perfectly true that recceing gave you the chance to experience many royal delights twice over – and without the attentions of the press pack. Had I not flown all over the bush in Zimbabwe in search of the right refugee camp? Or lunched alone with six Indonesian princesses anxious to practise their royal conversational skills? Or even risen at dawn to see the sunrise from a frontier fort in the Khyber Pass? Too much of this kind of reminiscence could produce jaundice in the most tolerant listener, and the Princess seldom fell into that category except when on duty. I sometimes unfairly felt that there was nothing like another’s good fortune to cloud her sunny outlook. Nor was there anything more guaranteed to stir up royal displeasure than the thought that those travelling on their coat-tails were enjoying the ride.
So if the Princess asked, apparently kindly, if your room in the guest palace was comfortable, it was wise not to make too much of its huge TV set, bottomless minibar or big fluffy towels. She was not really that interested, except to find reasons for feeling resentful or exploited.
It could have gone either way, therefore, but when I said goodbye to her on the eve of my departure for the Kuwait recce she was touchingly solicitous, concerned for the hard work I faced and anxious to let me know that I would be missed. This reflected her good nature. It also reflected her tendency to see duty on her husband’s behalf – which this would largely be – as an unenviable hardship. I later concluded that it was also evidence of her foresight in realizing that this was not going to be one of those recces that anyone would sensibly envy.
Twenty-four hours later I lay in the darkness and shivered. I had not expected to feel cold in the Persian Gulf and this dusty chill had a penetrating quality. I was dog tired, but sleep was impossible. The Embassy residence was quite small and, as a junior visitor, I had been given a room that could have been used in the fight against government cuts as convincing proof that there was no feather-bedding in this corner of the Diplomatic Service. I soon started rummaging in my suitcase for extra clothes that I had not packed. My thoughts turned enviously to my companions who, because of the lack of official accommodation, had been exiled to the nearest five-star American hotel.
The shivering was not just caused by the cold. The Ambassador’s anecdotes, though intended to amuse and inform, had also contained warnings about the pitfalls awaiting us in the protocol departments of our later destinations in Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
I felt oppressed by our responsibilities, especially my own. I was scared stiff, in fact. I have never needed much excuse to indulge in a good bout of worrying and it often has the beneficial side effect of displacing my habitual lethargy. This time, however, I realized I had better reason than usual to feel apprehensive. A tour could be judged as successful against a host of different criteria – there were as many opinions as there were observers and any credit could therefore be widely distributed. No such latitude applied to the unsuccessful tour. I knew that if the verdict on our Gulf expedition was unfavourable, in the scramble to avoid the ensuing derision I would be at a disadvantage. Royal displeasure is an unstable pyrotechnic, but I had already observed that it favoured soft targets – and I was pretty sure that they came no softer than the apprentice equerry.
Even more worrying was the discovery that this regal wrath could be directed almost at will by those whose domestic responsibilities kept them closest to the royal person at its less royal moments. It may be true that no man is a hero to his valet, but it was a law of Palace survival that only a hero (and a foolhardy one at that) would disoblige a royal valet and expect to escape the inevitable explosion. I now had almost unlimited power to disoblige valets and their ilk. One poisoned word from them would drop me deep in the mire. Two poisoned words, and I might as well run away to sea, assuming the Navy would have me back.
The reason we gave to sceptical hosts when they politely queried our extensive and precise domestic requirements was that to give of their best our employers had to feel that a little piece of KP was awaiting them at the end of an arduous day’s hot and dusty engagements. In this need for domestic predictability they perhaps echoed the travel-weary businessman’s preference for hotels whose location in the world is easily guessed from the name given to the bar, or the bartender.
Both being rather exacting in their personal requirements, the Prince and Princess induced an understandable nervousness in the valet and dresser, who would bear the brunt of any shortcomings. They in turn developed powers of critical invective that would be the envy of Michelin inspectors. Their judgement in such matters was absolute and would be shared sooner or later by the Prince and Princess. It was thus the equerry’s over-riding task on the recce to ensure that they never had cause to exercise their awesome power to turn cold toast (or a sticking window, or a hard mattress) into a tour-wrecking catastrophe.
As I dozed fitfully on my own lumpy Embassy mattress, I scared myself into a cold sweat with visions of royal domestic disaster. Missing baggage, inadequate transport, unpopular room allocations, unacceptable food … the list was endless. It was so unfair. Luck seemed to play such a huge part in deciding my success or failure. Every time – as the dream descended into nightmare – the vision ended with a posse of iron-wielding valets pursuing me, mouthing damning judgement on the arcane arrangements over which I had sweated blood.
I greeted my travelling companions blearily at breakfast. Their tasks all seemed so straightforward by comparison. No wonder they had all slept so well. Then I noticed John Riddell’s expression. The normal half-amused, donnish detachment was missing, replaced by a look of unusual preoccupation. It might have been the Kuwaiti version of an English breakfast staring back at him from his plate, but I preferred to believe, with relief, that he shared some of my anxiety.
In the exotic surroundings of the desert state – and with the excuse of jet lag and general mental disorientation – it was a struggle to remember that the basic rules of recceing were basically unchanged from those I was learning to apply in more mundane surroundings in Britain. To counteract this, I acquired the knack of dismissing my surroundings, however diverting, in order to concentrate on the simple staples of timing, route, press, protocol and security.
Begun as an act of self-preservation, it became a habit that eventually passed for professionalism. Sadly, it also meant that I was often oblivious to which great event or personality I was trying to organize, save for the need to contrive my courtier’s patter into a form I judged least provocative to the local culture. It is only now, years afterwards and without the benefit of even the sketchiest diary, that this lid of detachment has been edged aside by memories which have stood the test of time. Having remained so vivid, they are probably the only ones worth having – a thought that somewhat justifies my slothful scorn of the assiduous diarist.
Assiduous was not a description I felt I could apply to my performance on the Kuwait recce, except perhaps in comparison with our delegation as a whole. I was probably applying attitudes still shaped by the demands of the Navy, however, and had yet to realize fully the deceptive way in which the courtier’s imperturbable outer calm could be mistaken for ennui.
Against this background, you can perhaps imagine the trepidation with which I set off after breakfast to recce the Salaam guest palace. In an ominous development, none of my colleagues felt able to tear themselves away from their own duties in order to accompany me. The message was clear: this was definitely the equerry’s job and I was welcome to it.
Salaam means ‘welcome’ and nobody could doubt the sincerity of the Kuwaitis’ hospitality. Nonetheless, as I stood in the grandiose marble hallway of the Salaam palace my senses slowly alerted me to the fact that however grand the title, and however warm the welcome, our temporary home was going to give the entourage plenty on which to sharpen their critical faculties.
The livid green carpet emitted an unidentifiable musky odour, which was taken up and queasily repeated in the chemical whiff I caught from voluminous drapes and curtains that billowed in the air conditioning. Insecticide, I thought. Drains, I thought, as I checked the bathrooms. What’s that? I thought, as I peered into the subterranean kitchens.
Circular in design and labyrinthine in its floor plans, the guest palace offered a bewildering range of permutations when it came to allocating rooms to the tour party. There was, of course, a formula to guide ignorant equerries in this exacting science. Distance from the royal bedroom was not arbitrarily assigned and paid no regard at all to what an outsider might think the appropriate order by seniority. It was your job not your apparent status that determined your room.
Some, such as PPOs and valets, had to be close by. Most of the rest could be parked in an outer zone from which a short sprint could bring them to the door of the royal apartments, where they could cool their heels awaiting the summons. Others still were banished to the Intercontinental hotel down the road. These were the true fortunates, unless you counted royal proximity above reliable plumbing, crisp sheets, a minibar and direct-dial phone. Few did.
The days of the recce passed in a flurry of planning visits to clinics, palaces, museums, crèches, schools and even a camel race track. Everything had to be planned in minute detail – the protocol, the press, the security and the transport. Everything became blurred by fatigue and desert sand; and by the aftereffects of an intensive round of ex-pat entertainment. Down the Gulf the pattern was repeated, in Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Punch-drunk with planning and giddy with jet lag, I returned to London and managed to sell the draft programme successfully to the Princess, even though at times it threatened to remain just a confusing, technicolour jumble of memories.
It was six weeks before I returned to the Middle East. This time I was in charge of the small advance party that flew out ahead of the Prince and Princess to check on last-minute arrangements. To my dismay, instead of a few minor adjustments, I discovered that the programme needed quite major surgery. Since the recce, our hosts had made various ‘improvements’ which, though undoubtedly well intended, nevertheless posed a serious threat to the delicate structure of compromises that made up the final version approved by the Prince and Princess.
The Ambassador and his staff worked heroically to explain this and placate our puzzled hosts. At last a compromise was reached which left our original programme broadly recognizable, but I was still apprehensive as I prepared my uniform for the royal arrival next day. As if sensing my mood, several buttons chose that moment to come loose on my jacket. I clumsily set to work with the hotel repair kit, assailed by visions of bursting undone at a bad moment.
Later, I gave up the unequal struggle with my needle and thread and tackled the last of my chores for the evening. I phoned the Princess, as we had agreed I would. I imagined her at KP making her own last-minute preparations for departure in the morning. It seemed harder to imagine her waiting expectantly for me to phone.
This would not be an easy call, I thought, as I dialled the familiar number. The agreement was that I would tell her how I was getting on in general and, in particular, what she could expect to find when she finally stepped off the plane in Kuwait. She knew the programme was liable to change at short notice and, like any element of uncertainty in her public life, she found that very unsettling.
Should I tell her the changes I had been forced to agree to on my own initiative? Pre-tour morale – hers and mine – was fragile and I had no wish to incur her severe displeasure at this late stage. If I just presented her with a fait accompli when she arrived, however, I might face accusations of keeping her in the dark – a cardinal sin, if sometimes a necessary one. Perhaps I could fudge it…
‘Patrick!’ came a breathy voice. ‘I thought you must have fallen down an oil well. Where have you been?’ She giggled expectantly.
This was terrible. Often it was worse if she was nice. Goodwill expenditure was carefully noted in the royal ledger and there was usually a price to be paid sooner or later. Still, it might be worth testing. Should I tell her that new joke about the camel who applied for a sex change? Or would any sign of levity be seen as damning proof that I had been living the life of Riley in the sunshine?
‘Did you hear the one about the camel who—’
‘Patrick! I haven’t time for your smutty jokes now. Have you managed to sort the programme out? Assuming you haven’t been sitting by the pool all day.’
‘Well, there are a few small changes …’ I explained them briefly. The silence on the other end of the line was heavy with disapproval. When I had finished my excuses her voice acquired an ominous tone of reproach.
‘Patrick! All that extra work, and after such a long flight. We’ll be on our knees.’ It always switched to ‘we’ when she was trying to imply that I – or life in general – was being unfair.
‘Yes, Ma’am, but it’s serious stuff – it’s not just something to keep you occupied while the Prince does the grown-up bits – and it’ll give the press something to write about apart from what you’re wearing.’
There was a pause, and then a sigh. ‘So what you’re telling me, Patrick, is: “Shut up, Diana, and do your job.”’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that …’
‘Ha! I know you wouldn’t. All right, Patrick – I’ll do what my male nanny tells me.’
‘Thank you, Ma’am.’ Hmm. Male nanny. It could be worse. It was certainly worth a facetious parting shot. ‘Have a nice flight.’
The reply was a violent raspberry.
In the event, of course, everything did work – at least as far as most people could see. The royal VC-10 whistled to an ear-splitting halt precisely on time, raising the curtain on a show essentially as old as diplomacy itself. The stars smiled for the cameras, spoke their lines and performed their routines with the charm and ease the world had come to expect. The machinery we had laboured to set up whirred into action and carried us all along on a conveyor belt of engagements, each a one-act play before an audience as faithful to the script as we were.
Nobody saw the little dramas behind the scenes. Nothing stirred a ripple on the smooth public surface of the tour. There were no cameras to snap the Princess testing her mattress by bouncing on it. Nobody recorded the staff’s impromptu late-night revue, complete with the butler’s impersonation routine that had us crying tears of laughter into our whisky. No outsiders, fortunately, witnessed the other tears and tantrums that inevitably erupted from time to time in our highly strung party far from its home base.
In fact, memorably, it was an outsider – a hysterical military attaché – who caused one of the greatest dramas by threatening a soldier in our team with court martial for insubordination. The poor, choleric colonel did not realize that the offender was a vital part of the royal support system and hence beyond the reach of normal military censure. Later, he recovered sufficiently to try to wheedle an official portrait photo of the Prince and Princess out of me. These trinkets had a remarkable attraction for some people and I could see the attaché’s mantelpiece was not going to be complete without this happy snap. There were real tears in his eyes as I explained that he was not on his Ambassador’s list of those deemed worthy of such recognition.
Disaster always seemed a hair’s-breadth away. Usually the crises were self-inflicted, as with our departure from Bahrein. Until that point the whistle-stop visit for lunch with the ruler had lived up to its expectations as a stress-free interlude between the exertions of Kuwait and the Emirates. Everything had gone smoothly and we returned to the airport to resume our journey in a state approaching euphoria. The accompanying party were already installed back on the VC-10 and I could see their faces pressed against the portholes as they looked down at the departure ceremony at the foot of the aircraft steps.
With a final wave to their host, the Prince and Princess started to climb the steps to the forward door of the aircraft. The remaining members of the party, me included, hurried up our own set of stairs to the doorway further aft (a sensible piece of aeronautical class distinction for which the venerable VC-10 might have been specifically designed). Speed took precedence over dignity, because we knew that slick RAF practice demanded that the engines should be started as soon as the senior VIP passengers were aboard. Any underlings following in their wake had therefore better look sharp or be left behind.
Sure enough, as we clattered up the last few steps I heard the first of the four Conway jets start to whine into life. Suddenly there was an urgent call from below. ‘Patrick!’ I turned round. At the bottom of the steps one of the local Embassy staff was holding out a suitcase. Had I forgotten something? I racked my brains, ready to blush at the thought of some duty not done.
Then it hit me. The watches! This was the almost mythical bonus that awaited members of royal tour parties visiting certain countries where ancient customs of hospitality had survived into a more material age. The suitcase was filled with gold, cunningly disguised as wristwatches, and each member of the accompanying party, down to the most humble secretary, expected his or her share of the windfall. No wonder their noses had been pressed to the windows as my car drew up. I had almost forgotten the most important piece of luggage of them all.
Quickly I turned and ran back down the steps to the ground. Fervently thanking my guardian angel, I started the return climb to the beckoning doorway, swag secure in my clammy hand. Imagine going down in history as The Equerry Who Forgot The Rolexes…
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the forward door was now firmly closed and a party of soldiers was hurriedly rolling the red carpet back towards the ceremonial dais from which our hosts were waving a final farewell. In my ears the Conways were rising to a crescendo. I did not have a second to spare.
With a final heave, I reached the platform at the top of the steps and thrust the suitcase at a large RAF figure who was blocking the doorway. ‘Quick, take this!’ The figure did not move. What was the matter with the idiot? ‘Hurry up! They’re waiting for us to go!’ I shouted above the steady roar of the jets. I could sense a dozen sets of eyes burning resentfully into my back. This stupid naval officer was delaying everything and spoiling the perfection of their departure ceremony. And what is the problem with our suitcase? Are our gifts unworthy?
The RAF figure was quite oblivious. ‘Has this item been security cleared?’ it asked impassively.
Still standing exposed on the platform, I felt a sudden rush of exasperated anger. ‘Of course it bloody well hasn’t! It’s a gift from the Emir and he’s watching us right now wondering what the f***’s the matter with it!’
‘I don’t care who it’s from,’ said the figure, still blocking the doorway. ‘It’s not coming on this aircraft until it’s been searched. It might be a bomb for all I know.’
‘All right then! You search it!’ I shouted, dropping the case at his feet and pushing past him into the cabin.
To his credit and my shame, he squatted on the platform under the baleful gaze of the Bahreini ruling family and the jubilant scrutiny of the British press corps and searched the suitcase from top to bottom, very thoroughly.
As we made our progress down the Gulf, schizophrenia seemed inevitable. One moment I was standing at the royal elbow, trying to wear an expression appropriate to the business in hand, be it the Emir’s banquet, the centre for children with disabilities, or the display of folk dancing. The next moment I was scurrying around in the false sanctuary of one of our guest palaces, humouring the hairdresser, placating the baggage master or fighting with the unfamiliar shower controls as I hurried to change for the Embassy reception.
With astonishing speed, the engagements painstakingly researched, recced and re-recced came and went. The closely typed pages of outline programmes, detailed programmes, administrative instructions and security orders had their brief moment of frenzied importance and then were forgotten, turned to paper vermicelli in our mobile shredder.
The leading lady did not even appear in the final scenes. She made a suitably stylish departure from Dubai in a borrowed jumbo jet, lent by a solicitous Sheikh. Never one to disappoint a damsel in need, when he heard that her scheduled return flight was delayed, he sent for his pilots three and dispatched her towards London in nothing less than a flying palace.
It was not clear who felt most upset: the Queen’s Flight at not being properly consulted about the use of an unfamiliar aircraft, or me at having to watch the Princess and her homebound team fly away in an aeroplane I would have liked to bore my grandchildren about.
The baggage master and I rattled back to our hotel in the elderly Embassy Land Rover and tortured ourselves with thoughts of the luxuries now being enjoyed by the lucky passengers. We had no trouble agreeing we were much more deserving. This was probably debatable. She had earned her seven hours of airborne fun.
With the departure of the Princess, her lady-in-waiting, dresser, assistant dresser, hairdresser and detective – and practically all the press – something approaching a holiday mood settled over the remaining party. The last leg of the journey was a private visit by the Prince to another desert kingdom, a male sanctuary where the exclusive club rules of worldwide royalty offered an understanding welcome for a fellow member. Compared to the tensions of the preceding week, even someone feeling as neurotic as I was could afford to relax.
‘Here’s the medicine you ordered,’ said the man from the Embassy as we settled into the last of a series of guest palaces. He handed me a suspiciously heavy dispatch case.
‘I didn’t order any medicine,’ I replied, mystified. Then I heard a muffled chink from inside the box. ‘Ah … yes, of course. Medicine. Thank you!’
Our accompanying doctor was unimpressed. ‘What you lot don’t need is more whisky,’ he grumbled, handing out supplies of pills to help us either sleep or stay awake.
Now alone among the Prince’s staff, I could not escape the feeling that the Princess’s mark was metaphorically stamped on my forehead. Although encouraged to feel part of the team, I was still a guest among guests. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the unbuttoned atmosphere of the male court, where discussion of real political and philosophical issues was possible in an atmosphere reminiscent of the wardrooms I had left behind. I noticed the same cautious deference to the senior officer’s opinion and marvelled again at the intricacies of his domestic arrangements, which could suddenly override almost all other priorities.
In addition, the experience of working briefly in what was later to become a hostile camp was invaluable. In later years, when events suggested that this camp was capable of conspiracy against the Princess, I could reassure myself – and her – that its capacity for cock-up was even greater. The passage of time and further rotations of advisers has not greatly altered that early impression.
The Prince’s office had acquired a rather patchy reputation, not because of incompetence or lack of effort, but because a support organization constantly on the verge of meltdown seemed to be an essential accompaniment to the Prince’s sense of being unfairly burdened. In a revelation gleefully reported by the press, he even once disclosed that he was forced to spend time correcting elementary errors in correspondence originating from his own office. His obvious regret at such a slip was not quite in time to prevent an understandable dent in fragile secretarial morale.
At last we reached the end of the tour. The euphoria was almost tangible as we clambered out of the final motorcade, made our last farewells and headed for the elegant white and blue VC-10 which was waiting to take us home. With a reassuring nod from the top of the steps, the baggage master signalled that all the other passengers and our mountain of luggage were safely aboard.
Taking a deep breath of scented Arabian air, I turned to follow my companions up the ladder. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Prince give his final wave and disappear inside. As expected, the first of the four jets immediately began to whine into life. Remembering Bahrein, I smiled to myself. That fuss with the suitcase seemed a long time ago. I had come a long way since then.
I turned for a last look and saw something fluttering on the bonnet of the Prince’s car. ‘Christ! The Standard!’
I ran back down the stairs and sprinted towards the car. It was my most elementary duty to ensure that we always carried with us the little flag that flew from the royal limousine. To leave it behind was a guarantee of ridicule, or worse. The royal Standard was a coveted object, laden even now with a mystical significance. Thank God I had spotted it.
Seeing me approach, the driver leapt out of the car and started to unscrew the flag from its special attachment. How helpful, I thought. Behind me I could hear the VC-10 getting up steam. Panting, I reached out to take the scrap of multicoloured cloth, a grateful ‘Shucran’ already on my lips. Suddenly it was snatched away. ‘No!’ said the driver, his dark eyes flashing. ‘I keep! Always I keep VIP flag!’
I grabbed a handful of flag and started to pull. ‘Let go!’ I shouted. ‘You can’t keep this one!’
For a ludicrous few moments we tussled over the flag. I had a hysterical vision of it tearing down the middle as the VC-10 taxied away, leaving us to squabble in the gathering dusk. With a final, frantic tug it was mine. I ran back to the aircraft, cursing all collectors. The idling jets shrieked with laughter. It must have made a great cabaret for the invisible audience behind the row of lighted portholes.
Arriving gasping in the cabin, I was met by the chief steward. He was holding a tray on which a large gin and tonic clinked musically. ‘I expect you could do with this, sir,’ he said.
My first overseas tour had given me a rare opportunity to work directly for the Prince. Although nominally in attendance as his equerry for the entire tour, in fact I had spent most of the time accompanying the Princess on her programme. John Riddell had accompanied the Prince, who had been quite content for me to concentrate on looking after his wife in the same way as if we were in England. On this particular occasion, however, he had agreed to visit the British frigate Hermione currently taking a break from patrolling the Persian Gulf, and it made sense that he should be accompanied that day by an aide in uniform rather than the (very) civilian John.
This engagement had already caused me some amusement. Taking my seat at one of many mahjlis in the Emirates, I found myself next to the Prince’s then polo manager, Ronnie Ferguson. I knew he had flown out to Dubai some days earlier and I was anxious to confirm that the frigate had also arrived safely. ‘Is Hermione here yet?’ I asked in a low whisper, conscious of the royal pleasantries being exchanged close by.
Ronnie started out of his reverie, looking at me with sudden new interest. ‘I say, you’re a quick worker!’
‘What do you mean, Ronnie?’
‘Hermione. You’ve already got some bird lined up here! Very quick work!’
Under bushy brows, his eyes twinkled with admiration. It was painful to have to explain the identity of the distinctly unsexy Hermione with whom I had planned this tryst. The twinkle slowly died and Ronnie lapsed once more into thoughts of polo.
Although the Prince was undoubtedly the senior figure in my royal world, I approached my day with him with few qualms. In all my brief encounters with him since starting the job, he had been friendly but reassuringly distant. Unlike his more volatile wife – who could switch from warm intimacy to frozen exclusion in an instant – he had the air of a man who did not care very much who or what you were so long as you did your job. In this he resembled a certain type of senior naval officer, a species very familiar to me. The Captain’s uniform he wore for the occasion reinforced this comforting impression.
As I sat with him in the back of the car I felt a distinct relief. The essentially female world I inhabited most of the time had its undoubted attractions, but it was a welcome break to be contemplating a day in uncomplicated masculine company in familiar surroundings. I felt as if I had been let out to play.
Hermione and the Prince both did themselves proud, I thought. The elderly ship looked brand new in the morning sun and her welcome was warm, enthusiastic and self-assured. The Prince was in his element, adapting his script instinctively to suit his varied audience of sailors, senior ratings and officers.
His visit was to end with a medal presentation in front of the entire ship’s company and I knew he would be expected to make a short speech. In the car I had felt an attack of panic as I realized I had not drafted anything for him to say. The Princess would have needed a script cleared well in advance, and coaching too.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t drafted anything for you, Sir,’ I said in some trepidation.
The Prince examined the backs of his hands. It was impossible to know what was coming next. ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll think of something.’ And he did, completely unrehearsed and much to the delight of the assembled sailors.
A few days later I saw a different side of him.
The halfway point in the tour came and went, and I had my first experience of the phenomenon known as ‘mid-trip dip’. Even the best tour could suffer from an attack of mid-term blues. The initial adrenaline surge wears off; the trip home lies on the other side of a mountain range of difficult engagements. An enervating climate and unsuitable food, bad sleep and bad hangovers combine to dull the reflexes, stunt new thought and confuse the body’s systems.
As our fatigue accumulated, so too did our immunity to anxieties that had seemed overwhelming on day one. Who really cared where we sat on the aeroplane – a matter of supreme importance in some households – so long as everyone was actually on board? And did it really matter that I had run out of a certain type of key ring which the Prince gave as a farewell gift to local staff?
Late one night in Dubai I discovered that it did matter, very much indeed. I had arranged our dozen farewell gifts on a sideboard in the Prince’s quarters, ready for him to hand them to the 12 – theoretically – most deserving officials who had helped with that leg of the tour. (This was the beauty parade for which the tearful colonel had failed to qualify.)
My job was to adjudicate on the list submitted by the Embassy, assemble the recipients and make sure they appeared smartly when I announced them. The size and combination of gifts – mostly signed photos, but also a few small items such as cuff links or purses – had to correspond to the perceived importance of the recipient. A short briefing was required on each so that the appropriate royal platitude could be murmured while the lucky winner bowed and grinned expectantly.
It was without doubt the worst part of any tour. The list of things that could go wrong was endless. Even if the Embassy could produce their proposals on time – and it was required at a stage in the proceedings when they were already under enormous pressure – its composition was fraught with protocol poison as jealous officials vied to be included. We were strict to the point of meanness about the number of recipients allowed and I often felt there was scant justice in the compromises that resulted.
Even if we had remembered to bring the right number of gifts from London – and for a long tour like the Gulf it could take several large cases to carry them and all their likely permutations – the Waleses were always liable to impose last-minute changes to the choice of photograph, the design of cuff link or the style of purse. In its most virulent form, this wish to control unimportant minutiae could grow to exclude all other considerations. It was as if this was the only part of our employers’ lives with which they could directly tinker, and goodness, how they relished it.
The result was a tension bordering on suppressed hysteria as prizegiving time approached. It was always shoehorned into a passage of frenetic activity in the programme – shortly before departure – and the logistic planning required to ensure the appearance of effortless efficiency was more appropriate, I felt, for the Nobel Prize itself. The tension was shared in full by our royal employers, who were sometimes unable to resist the temptation to be sharply pernickety with those responsible for any shortcoming. That night in Dubai, the responsible person was undoubtedly me.
The Prince had recently chosen a new style of key ring to give to drivers. Only a limited number had been available before we left, but enough, we thought, to cope with the expected demand. Just to be on the safe side we had brought a number of the old pattern as well. Fate – or the Prince’s enthusiasm for his new design – now caused us to break into our reserve stock of the older version.
I was congratulating myself on my foresight in bringing this spare supply as I completed my preparations for the imminent ceremony. It was perhaps unrealistic of me to expect royal recognition for my prudent planning. In fact, self-congratulation was usually followed very quickly by nemesis, but I had not expected it to arrive quite so quickly.
My ears rang to the sound of princely disappointment. Why was he not being allowed to give out the new key ring he had chosen? The rebuke was addressed to an unfair world, but all available eyes turned inexorably in my direction. Disaster – never banished, only postponed – stared me in the face with a look that had been vaporizing erring equerries for a thousand years.
In my pristine white buckskin shoes, my toes wriggled in embarrassment. I squirmed. But I managed to stare back. Beneath my shame a vague sense of injustice stirred as I mentally scanned my endless list of responsibilities. All this fuss because of a key ring? Calling on distant naval experience, I fixed an expression of vague contrition on my face and simultaneously raised a quizzical eyebrow. Insolence, like beauty, is firmly in the eye of the beholder and I held my breath, awaiting the final thunderbolt, the prelude to dismissal, disgrace and – probably – public execution.
It never came. The storm passed as suddenly as it had blown up. With a smile the Prince redirected the reproach to himself. I was preserved to sin again in the future. Relief washed over me, but not before I had registered two important points: (1) always bring lots of spare gifts (or ‘gizzits’ in the jargon) to cater for sudden outbreaks of royal largesse; and (2) remember Princes get tired as well.
Like insolence and beauty, humour is also in the eye or ear of the beholder. Recovering from my experience with the gifts, I was tempted to try to be funny with the Prince on our return to England. The results were not encouraging, as I shall describe. This taught me another lesson: the Prince’s ability – which he undoubtedly has – to enjoy certain types of joke is not to be taken as an encouragement to display your own scintillating wit. That was my experience, anyway.
That aside, I had liked my first experience of working with him. It was not just the reassuring familiarity of having a male boss again: there was a humour and a warmth behind the acquired remoteness which I felt was waiting to be released, if only I had the time and guts – not to mention the presumption – to try to unlock it.
It was true, I had also detected an occasional brooding menace. Like his famous charm, it was only revealed fleetingly to me, an outsider. It jostled in his face with self-pity and other, more uplifting emotions, but it was there nevertheless, in a vengeful look or anger explosively expressed.
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.
