Diana: Closely Guarded Secret

 

'Gran-gran' was the pet name William and Harry used for their great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, while the Queen was always 'Granny'; but to the police, there was only one 'Supergran'.

Diana's mother, the Honourable Mrs Frances Shand Kydd. To Diana she
was simply 'Mummy', the one person in the world to whom she could always turn. A great deal of nonsense has been written about the allegedly unsympathetic relationship between the two women, much of it based upon the improperly understood notion that Frances 'bolted' while Diana was a child, abandoning her four children to run off with another man after her unhappy marriage to Diana's father had failed. It is certainly true that Frances abandoned the marriage, but what is less often remarked is that she fought hard to keep custody of her two youngest children, Diana and Charles, only to be betrayed in a celebrated, indeed, sensational, court case by her own mother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, who testified against Frances in favor of her aristocratic son-in-law Johnny, the eighth Earl Spencer. Even after the divorce and custody hearings were over, Frances did everything possible to spend as much time as she could with her impressionable daughter and young son, Charles.


What I witnessed in private told a very different story from the widely held one of mother and daughter at odds with one another, for Diana and 'Granny Frances' (the boys' pet name for her) enjoyed a close and loving relationship. When Diana was at her most troubled, and really needed the most private of counsel, it was to her mother that she would always turn.


Whenever Frances came to Highgrove, or when we went to her home near Oban in the west of Scotland, William and Harry were ecstatic. Diana's mother was an excellent mediator, and at Highgrove was one of the few people capable of breaking the bitingly cold silences that reigned between Charles and Diana. Journalists tended to assume that because the Princess and her mother lived so far apart geographically, contact between them must be limited. In reality they kept very much in touch, and whenever Diana wanted to escape with her sons, we would decamp en masse for Scotland to her mother's remote hideaway for a healthy dose of
normality. The young princes loved these visits, and they were always a tonic to Diana.

At the time Frances lived in a whitewashed farmhouse on the remote island of Seil, a few miles south of Oban. As with any proposed visit by the Princess, private or otherwise, I would be sent in advance to ensure the place was secure. Although such an investigation would be very discreet, it was essential to liaise with the local police at Oban, who enjoyed a good relationship with Frances, and to ensure there were enough rooms in the nearby Willowburn Hotel at Balricar for back-up protection officers. It is not too much to say that Seil was the setting for one of the best holidays the Princess and her sons ever took together, far
outshining the more glamorous and exotic foreign trips she made that the press highlighted.

In August 1989 the three of them spent a week-long holiday with Frances. It could not have come at a better time, for the Princess was close to breaking point. Seil and the surrounding area had everything that two active and adventurous small boys could hope for. With the sea on its doorstep, open countryside, river inlets and rowing boats, it was better than any adventure playground.

Good forward planning meant that we arrived there undetected by the media. It delighted her that here her boys were able to play as normal children away from snoopers, and away from the restraints of royal life. Diana, too, had complete freedom. She was able to go off on long solitary walks without me or the back-up officers. I knew that she was relatively safe on the island, but as a precaution I insisted that she always took with her a police radio tuned to my waveband, in case she encountered difficulties. This was, I think, a measure of the level of trust that had developed between us since I had taken over as her senior personal protection officer. True, I was not acting by the book, and doubtless my superiors would have been horrified, but it worked. The Princess appreciated our working relationship and the freedom it brought her, and for weeks afterwards her feelings of being trapped would seem to evaporate.

One of Diana's many qualities was that she really was, at heart, a natural girl who liked taking care of others. She took no domestic staff with her when she went to visit her mother. It meant she could really be herself. Perhaps curiously for a woman of immense privilege, she relished the domestic chores which the absence of her sometimes over-attentive staff allowed her. She delighted in doing the dishes after dinner and in washing everybody's clothes; she even offered to iron my shirts, though I initially declined. Eventually, however, I relented and handed one of them over, joking with her that I could not imagine the Queen ironing one of my colleague's shirts. The image of Her Majesty standing at an ironing board with one of her shirtless bodyguards before her sent the Princess into
fits of giggles.

As she stood in the kitchen with just a towel wrapped around her, ironing my shirt, William joined us. He had developed the idea that his mother had a crush on me and, being full of mischief, put this to her. The Princess told him not to be so silly, at which he suddenly tugged at her towel so that it dropped to the floor, leaving the wife of the heir to the throne naked before me. Diana slowly picked up the towel, covered herself again, and promptly burst out laughing.

There was a relaxed family atmosphere to her holidays on Seil that was especially welcome because it was so rare in a life filled with official functions and all the other trappings of royalty. I helped prepare the meals that the family and I would enjoy at Frances's old table. We would sit there eating, drinking and regaling each other with stories far into the night. Such times were truly golden, and I am glad to have been able to share them. Much of this was owed to Frances, a decent, down-to-earth woman, humorous, intelligent and kind, who has been, and sometimes still is, much maligned. During the days, as I kept the two princes occupied, the Princess was able to discuss with her mother the full implications of her increasingly desperate situation.

Frances was the perfect sounding board. Not only was she a sympathetic ear, but she had a wealth of experience in marital disharmony, having been through one of the most celebrated divorces of the sixties. She knew of the private relationships of both her daughter and her son-in-law, but still gently urged Diana to fight to save her marriage, knowing that she still loved Charles, if only for the sake of her sons. Frances, more than most people, knew the agony of being separated from her children.

Just over a year later, Frances came to stay at Highgrove for the weekend at the invitation of the Prince who, curiously, for he liked her, timed it so that he was away and Diana had the run of the house. It was wonderful for the princes to have Granny Frances around, and they could barely contain their excitement when she arrived. As always, Frances revived her daughter's flagging spirits. It was one of those beautiful September weekends when the summer seems to have forgotten that autumn is already here. The weather was perfect for lounging beside the pool, and there the two women, so similar in character and looks, sat and talked for hours. It was not difficult to guess what they were discussing. Both were genuinely sad to be parting when Monday morning came. They promised not to leave it so long before they met again. Then Diana embraced her
mother on the steps before waving her off.

I had, and have, a great deal of time for Frances Shand Kydd. She did everything she could to support her daughter, but also to save Diana's marriage, if only for the sake of William and Harry. Her wisdom, her experience, her kindness, were always at Diana's disposal, and the Princess knew it, and was glad of it. Sadly, however, by the autumn of 1990 matters had reached a point beyond any person's repair.

Throughout her life within 'the Firm', senior members of the royal family privately disapproved of Diana's headline-grabbing acts of public caring. In reality, however, they all, Prince Charles included, coveted the positive media attention she attracted. It is undoubtedly true that since her death the royal family has embraced much of the style and many of the ideas she pioneered.

To accuse the Princess of cynically using the sick and dispossessed to bolster her image, as some commentators have done, is as unjust as it is untrue. As I know only too well, there were many occasions when she would have preferred to have stayed at home playing with her sons. That she did not was because she felt a clear sense of her duty, as well as a profound sense of responsibility to the ordinary men and women who often waited for hours to see her. She never willingly let anyone down.

From an early age, Diana wanted to help those less fortunate than herself. She was by nature a giving person, but during the first few years of her marriage, when she was in her early twenties, she lacked the confidence to put her wishes into practice. By the late 1980s, however, she was beginning to realize her power and potential. She was also genuinely interested in how other people coped with their given lot.

The late Cardinal Basil Hume and the Princess were kindred spirits. They forged a close friendship and Diana even flirted for a time with the idea of converting to Catholicism.* (*The Queen's cousin by marriage, the Duchess of Kent, converted to Catholicism; the Duchess's sister-in-law, Princess Michael of Kent, is a Catholic by upbringing.) She once asked me what I thought of the idea but, perhaps too glibly, I told her that she would make an interesting subject for the priest who heard her confession. Nonetheless, I am sure that the only reason she did not join the Catholic Church (as her mother had done) was because she was worried about the backlash from the royal family if she had done so. Ironically, the bar on the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic is likely to be one of the reforms that will be introduced before Prince Charles becomes King.

Diana's first experience of the harsh reality of homelessness came in September 1989 after Cardinal Hume (Archbishop of Westminster, and thus the Roman Catholic Primate of England and Wales) invited her to make a private visit to the Passage Day Centre in Carlisle Place, near Victoria in Central London. The center, run by the Catholic Church, was located in a large basement, where there were kitchens, tables and, above all, heaters. On the day of the visit I placed two police officers, dressed in shabby clothing, down there to monitor security, since we could hardly adopt a stop-and-search policy for a sympathetic visit. They were already in place when the Princess and I arrived at around 10.30 am on 11 September. Most of those using the center were sad cases, people simply cast aside or forgotten by society; many were hooked on drugs or alcohol, or tormented by mental illness.

Since no member of the royal family had ever done anything like this before, the Princess was naturally apprehensive as she stepped from the car to be greeted by Cardinal Hume and Sister Barbara Smith, who were waiting on the pavement outside the center.

That day, Diana had discarded her designer clothes and was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Once inside and with the formalities over, I decided to give her a free hand. For about an hour she chatted easily to these desperate people, discussing the conditions they lived in and the food available to them, and a hundred other things besides. I should stress that, in 1989, I doubt whether any member of the royal family would even have contemplated making such a visit. Prince Charles, to his credit, has since followed Diana's lead, as have William and Harry (although they made some of these visits with their mother), but the royal family's involvement with these and similar less glamorous causes would never, in my opinion, have come about but for her example.

She was without doubt a pioneer, and a brave one at that. Her life would have been a great deal easier - and a great deal less beset by criticism - if she had simply sat back, dressed extravagantly and looked good at royal engagements, and deferred to her husband. But Diana was different; more importantly, she wanted to have a positive effect on the world around her. What she lacked in formal education she more than made up for with an inquiring mind and a desire to learn from firsthand experience and face-to-face meetings.

At the center, she simply sat down among these unfortunates and talked to them. For obvious reasons, a policeman's experience of the homeless, of alcoholics and drug addicts, and of the mentally disturbed, is not always a happy one, but as I watched Diana at work my fears lifted. This woman, who herself came from a privileged background and had married into one of the most famous and richest families in the world, did everything she could to appreciate her conversants' situation and understand what had led them to such despair.

Within minutes the skeptical ogling and transfixed stares had disappeared, and for a brief while these down-and-outs seemed to forget who she was. Despite my decision to let her mix freely, I remained close to the Princess just in case of trouble. It was a prudent decision because at one point a florid-faced man, whom I would have guessed to be in his mid-forties, unkempt and wearing filthy clothes, suddenly decided to confront her. Breathing alcohol fumes all over her, he launched into a tirade. 'It's all right for the likes of you to come down here just for half an hour. You want
to try living on the streets .'

As I prepared to move him away, Diana turned to me, indicating that she did not want me to intervene. As he reeled off his complaints, peppered with expletives throughout, she remained calm and relaxed. 'It's okay, Ken,' she whispered, 'I'm fine.'

She then looked the red-faced man in the eye and, without flinching, replied: 'Well, the reason I am here is to see exactly what it is like, so that I can help in any way I can.' That serene, unflustered and above all, sympathetic response won over those around the man, and he was shouted down. He had made a point that worried the Princess, however. In the car on the way back to Kensington Palace it was clear that his comments still preyed on her mind.

'Perhaps he's right, Ken,' she said, as she mulled over the criticism. Trying to reassure her, I told her that what she was doing was right. 'Ma'am, you must be true to yourself. Follow your instincts and you won't go wrong.'

For a few seconds she sat in quiet contemplation. Then, speaking with complete and uncomplicated honesty, she said, 'This is the work I want to get involved in from now on, Ken. If I can make something positive happen for these unfortunate people, and people like them, then there is a place for me.'

It was a theme to which the Princess would continually return as, in the years that followed, she strove to stamp her humanitarian mark upon the world. She was always conscious that she was open to the criticism that she was only doing it for self-publicity. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Many of her visits were carried out in private, and she put just as much into an engagement, if not more, when the cameras were not there as when the media turned up en masse.

She would return many times to the Passage Day Centre, sometimes accompanied by her two young sons. Yet again she was determined that
although the princes had been were born to privilege and wealth, they should understand the difficulties faced by others less fortunate than themselves. It is a lesson that William and Harry have never forgotten, and for which Diana should be for ever credited.

In the autumn of 1989 James Hewitt, the man whom Diana would later tell the world that she had 'adored', was sent to Germany on a two-year posting. He had originally agreed to accept ceremonial duties * (* Primarily based in London and Windsor, the site of the monarch's two principal residences, the officers and men of the Household Cavalry perform many ceremonial functions, from mounting guard at Horse Guards in Whitehall to finding escorts for state occasions.) at headquarters - which had given him the freedom to conduct his affair with Diana - on the understanding that he would be transferred to active duty if he was given command of his own tank squadron.

For the sake of his career he had no choice, having been promoted to squadron commander with the rank of temporary major, but to take the posting, especially as tension was growing in the Gulf and the British Army was on high alert. Perhaps realizing the effect that news of his posting would have on the sometimes volatile Princess, he did not tell her until the last possible moment.

At first Diana tried everything in her power to prevent Hewitt from accepting the posting. She even suggested that she would raise the issue with his commanding officer. James, horrified, since such a move would almost certainly have wrecked his army career (to say that the Household Cavalry would have frowned on one of its officers conducting an affair with the wife of the heir to the throne would be a massive understatement), insisted that she would do no such thing. He was, in any case, by now beginning to suspect that her passion for him was starting to fade, for it was now that Diana, who always craved attention and who felt that the one man on whom she thought she could depend had betrayed her by accepting his move to Germany, began seriously to question the sense, as well as the safety, of pursuing the relationship. Their conversations on the telephone became less frequent until, without telling Hewitt, she resolved to end the affair. By this time she had already invited or encouraged the attentions of James Gilbey.

I am convinced that Diana believed that by allowing her affair to wane and die she was somehow adopting the moral high ground over her husband, who continued his liaison with Camilla Parker Bowles. She and Hewitt scarcely spoke for the rest of the year as he trained his tank crews in Germany. In the dying days of the year Berlin's youth at last tore down the Wall, and the curtain literally came down on the old political order. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein plotted his next move.

With Hewitt out of the way, and largely out of mind, Diana threw herself into her work. She took all her patronages - and she was patron to a good number of causes - very seriously, but none more so than the English National Ballet. Significantly, after she quit public life in December 1993, giving up most of her causes, she remained patron of the charity. Perhaps, because of her girlhood ambitions. One night in December 1989 we left Kensington Palace at just after 8.10 pm and drove the short distance to the grand, white-fronted residence of the French Ambassador at 11, Kensington Park Gardens. The Princess was in an ebullient mood, full of laughter and excitement, and was particularly looking forward to the half-hour performance that had been specially arranged for the evening, and which was to take place after the opulent dinner, served in a giant marquee in the residence's garden, and before coffee was taken.

'I can't wait,' she gushed, her mind on the performance to come. 'Mr Gorlin [the then Chairman of English National Ballet] has told me it will be just exquisite.' I have a great love of opera and classical music, but I have to admit that ballet is not my forte. In fact, I was considerably relieved that the performance was limited to thirty minutes, although I did not let the Princess know this. To her, ballet was a passion, and she regarded the fact that she was patron of the English National Ballet as an enormous privilege. Even the dreary realization that she would have to put on another public performance of her own for the English National Ballet's wealthy benefactors, like the Marchioness of Douro, the Honorary Chairman, or billionaire's wife Mrs Lemos, Co-Chair of the Gala Committee, for once did not burden her. Gracefully, she took her place at the top table after a short champagne reception in the residence's grand dining room.

One of the events of the evening was a prize draw, held after dinner and the ballet performance (which, I'm sorry to say, largely passed me by), and before the auction, designed to raise more money from well-fed patrons for the English National Ballet. At around 10.35 pm, therefore, the Earl of Gowrie drew the lucky prize ahead of the auction. As usual I had bought a few raffle tickets, some for me and some for the Princess who, like most royalty, rarely carried cash, but was oblivious of proceedings until my name was suddenly read out by Lord Gowrie. I had won second prize. Fully expecting to collect a otleofmi-rng vntgechmpgn, ws stnihe t b tld ha m piz ws fvestr,al-epese-pidhoidy o alysa,staying in one of that country's most lavish hotels. The Princess, predictably, collapsed into fits of giggles at my good fortune (and my predicament as to whether or not to accept it). Still laughing, she edged away from the crowd around her and joined me. 'You could always take me, Ken,' she whispered, 'I could do with a good holiday.'

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