Diana--A Closely Guarded Secret (27 page)

A telephone call was made to London and the secretary, Nicky Cockell, was asked to dispatch the vibrator by diplomatic bag to the British Embassy in Nepal. It arrived in a sealed packet, delivered on a silver tray by a Gurkha aide to the King of Nepal, just before the start of a press reception in honour of the visit that the Ambassador was holding in the grounds of his official residence. At that moment the Princess was preparing to go into the garden to meet the media who had been following her. The soldier had orders for the package to be delivered ‘at once’ to the Princess of Wales’s equerry, Captain Ed Musto, Royal Marines, and nothing was going to deter him.

Musto, a self-effacing officer who towered over everyone present, not quite knowing what to expect, foolishly opened the packet and removed the offending item in front of everyone
in the room (but, mercifully, not the press who were starting to gather outside). There was a stunned pause (and a few bemused glances from embassy dignitaries), until the silence was broken by Diana, who said, ‘Oh, that must be for me,’ and began to laugh. Musto graciously put the
Gaget
into his pocket and nothing more was said by the intrigued gathering of officials and dignitaries. With the delivery of our tour mascot there could be no question about the success of the trip after that.

The following day the Princess headed for the Nepalese countryside, dominated by steep slopes and rocky paths to see, against the backdrop of the Himalayas, conditions in which most of the country’s inhabitants lived. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, and her objective was simple – to try to remove the threat of hunger, or even starvation, by showing the public at home the terrible plight of most Nepalis, in the hope that money would pour in to the charities working to alleviate the problem. After a breathtaking flight over the foothills of the Himalayas aboard King Birendra’s Chinook helicopter, we hovered over a giant open fire that was the centrepiece of a tiny, ramshackle collection of huts – the village of Majhuwa, our designated landing. We were in a mountain region famous as a recruiting area for the fearsome Gurkhas, the tough and valiant Nepalese hillmen who have provided regiments for the British Army for nearly two hundred years, and who have served the British Crown with undying loyalty. The Princess’s visit came at a time when the British government had proposed cutting Gurkha regiments in British service (there are Gurkha regiments in the Indian Army, as well) by 2,500 of these warriors. There was a particularly poignant moment
when she encountered a local hero – an old Gurkha, well into his nineties, who had joined the army in 1935 – standing in his frayed demob suit with his campaign medals glistening in the sun. As the Princess walked by he snapped to attention and gave her the smartest of salutes. What price such loyalty in the Palace, I thought sourly. Diana was taking all the strains of the tour in her stride, unfazed by the pressure, much of it self-inflicted, in the sense that she insisted on doing as much as she possibly could. She was exhilarating to be with, but always careful to heed advice so as not to put a foot wrong.

Meanwhile, the tension between the press and the Nepalese government continued to dominate the trip, at least in the British papers. It intensified when
Sun
photographer Arthur Edwards was accused of having made a racist remark to the Nepalese Prime Minister. Edwards, whose flattery of the Princess on tour was legendary, sparked a diplomatic incident as she arrived for a state dinner at the Royal Palace. When Diana walked past the press pen, Arthur smiled at her and said gushingly, ‘You look fantastic tonight, ma’am.’ My colleague, Inspector Peter Brown, who was on duty as her protection officer that night, smirked at the photographer, prompting him to say, ‘You don’t look too bad yourself, Brownie.’ Unfortunately, at that precise moment the Nepalese Prime Minister was walking past and, hearing the comment, interpreted it as a racist insult directed at him. Once inside the banqueting hall he instructed his senior aide to complain to the British Embassy about the photographer’s behaviour, with the result that a bewildered – and innocent – Edwards was forced to explain himself and apologise. The consolation was that his editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, thought
the story was sensational and splashed it across
The Sun
’s front page on the following day.

Diana was beginning to stamp her mark on the trip. She had developed an excellent working relationship with Lady Chalker, whose down-to-earth approach and sense of humour matched her own. The Princess, who was in Nepal officially in her dual role as patron of the British Red Cross and the Leprosy Mission, now began making headlines for the right reasons in other newspapers. Even so, some of the tabloids continued to print trivia or dross. She made a flawless visit to the Lele Memorial Park, high in the Himalayan foothills, a gaunt, barren place that could only be approached by a winding, deeply potholed and crumbling road. It was a testing assignment for the Princess, and a sad one. She had been asked to pay her respects to the dead of PIA Flight 268, which, the year before, had smashed into the mountainside on its approach to Kathmandu airport, killing all 167 people on board, among them 34 mostly young Britons. When, a day earlier, I arrived on the advance reconnaissance the coffins of the victims, which had been disinterred for reburial in the park, lay uncovered in front of the semi-circular stone memorial, which had been built on a higher plateau overlooking the crash site. I told the organiser of the visit that these poor souls must be buried before the Princess arrived. Wobbling his head from side to side, he assured me that he understood the urgency. Nevertheless, I was convinced that my plea had fallen on deaf ears and that Diana would be faced with a gruesome scene when she came to the site on the next day. Over supper I raised my concerns with King Birendra’s protection officer, Major Khadga Gurung,
who assured me everything would be resolved by the morning. He was right, and I felt ashamed of my doubts.

Diana played her role faultlessly next day. Dignified and determined she was a perfect ambassador for the Queen. Unfortunately, the sunlight behind her meant that photographers took shots that showed her long legs silhouetted through her silk skirt. The following day, despite her solemnity at the ceremony, some of the newspapers ran those photographs, comparing them to the famous photograph of her as a teenage nanny at the Young England Kindergarten on the eve of her engagement to Prince Charles, in which the outline of her legs had also been visible. One tasteless headline, ‘Legs We Forget’, she found particularly galling, especially as she had performed her duty perfectly. She became upset, almost convinced that the media were doing their best to undermine her. I told her that she had nothing to worry about, and added that her legs looked great, which drew a smile.

Later that day the Princess visited the Anandaban leprosy hospital. The small, 120-bed hospital was crammed with victims, many with stumps where hands and feet should be, who seemed to accept their terrible affliction with gentle patience and great dignity. Once more Diana’s humanity dominated the visit, and it was noticeable that when she walked through a ward without the cameras on her she spent just as much time with the sufferers, as she had when the press had been snapping away. She came away deeply moved, and more determined than ever to do whatever she could to help.

One of the trip’s most memorable moments came on the day when we flew over the spectacular Himalayas in the King
of Nepal’s helicopter to visit a project to provide water for a spartan hillside village high in eastern Nepal. At one point the Princess disappeared into a desperately run-down one-roomed shack, home to an entire Nepalese peasant family. She emerged, clearly shocked, after spending several minutes inside with the hut’s simple occupants. Moved by the extent of their poverty, she set aside her own problems and put into perspective the true worth of her trip to Nepal in one crisp phrase. Sighing deeply as she left the shack, she said, ‘I will never complain again.’ It was a great sound bite for the media, and I am sure that at the moment she said it she truly believed it. I knew from years of experience, however, that it was not a promise she would, or could possibly, keep. Alarmingly, it struck me that Diana appeared to be coming to believe her own propaganda.

After Nepal the Princess was determined to expand her schedule further, and in this respect the International Red Cross perfectly suited her interest and her ambition. There followed a series of personal meetings with John Major, whom she found sympathetic and engaging, very different from his rather grey public persona. She liked and trusted him. At first, she was anxious, but once the Prime Minister had put her at ease she opened up to him. He knew, from Foreign Office feedback after overseas visits she had made, that the Princess was a real asset, and one that should be nurtured. She was elated after these meetings – at last she was being recognised for what she could do, rather than as simply the wife of the Prince of Wales. The men in grey suits at the Palace, however, had other ideas. Just as the government was acknowledging and acting on her considerable talents, they turned on her with a pettiness that
defies logic. In a ridiculous and demeaning sideswipe someone in the Palace ruled that she no longer warranted an entry in the Court Circular, a daily report that lists the official engagements and activities of the sovereign and senior working members of the royal family. This was their way of telling her that her engagements were less royal – and less important – than those undertaken by other members of the family. She rose above the snub with remarkably good grace. ‘Silly fools,’ she said dismissively on the way back from the charity première of the film
Accidental Hero
at the Odeon, Leicester Square, in April. The occasion had been televised, she had chatted with the film’s star, Dustin Hoffman, a military band had played, and the Chairman of the mental-health charity Mencap, Lord Rix, had been there to greet her.

‘How much more official do they want my engagements to be?’ she asked rhetorically. ‘According to them, that job tonight was not an official engagement. Did you see all the people who turned up, Ken? And I suppose all the money we raised for charity was not real, either? It’s just ridiculous. But at least they come to see me.’

She had a valid point. While her husband was officially receiving star royal billing, on the Court Circular at least, carrying out his official duties before a handful of loyal supporters, thousands turned up at her unlisted engagements just to catch a glimpse of the Princess. Now, however, the Palace, much to her frustration, became obstructive. When she raised the idea of making a morale-boosting trip to see the British troops in Bosnia, it was blocked because Prince Charles was due to make a similar trip. She was also informed that a
visit to Ireland would be inappropriate, while at the memorial service for the two children killed by the IRA’s bomb blast at Warrington, Charles, not Diana, was chosen to represent the Queen. Typically, she turned the situation on its head by first calling, and then visiting the devastated parents at home.

A part of the reason for this and similar blocking moves lay with her husband’s office, which, under the express direction of his private secretary, Commander Richard Aylard, was planning its own PR offensive. Aylard believed that this would redress the balance and portray the Prince in a good light, re-establishing his popularity with media and public alike. With hindsight, Aylard’s decision to offer the respected broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby ‘unprecedented access’ to the Prince for a warts-and-all television documentary (with a book billed as an authorised biography to follow) was at best foolhardy. In terms of the Prince’s public persona it proved disastrous, and the programme (which was broadcast in June 1994) is likely to be remembered for the Prince’s painful admission of adultery, and his less than manly complaints about the way his parents raised him. So while Diana triumphed in 1993, basking in the media’s praise and the public’s adulation, Dimbleby and his television crew (with the help of Charles’s entire entourage) set about the business of relaunching the Prince. Dimbleby did approach Diana to ask her if she wanted to take part in the programme, which was ostensibly being made to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales. They lunched together and he was charmed by her, but although she was tempted, those close to her, including me, advised her to steer well clear, assuring her that it would be
unlikely to bring her either credit or praise. For once, she took our advice.

By the spring of 1993 Diana was becoming increasingly uneasy with having to live at Kensington Palace, surrounded by police surveillance cameras, and with her estranged husband’s mainly disapproving relations as close neighbours. She longed to break free and have a place that she could truly call her own. So when her brother, Earl Spencer, telephoned out of the blue and offered her the use of the Garden House at Althorp, her ancestral home, she was both pleased and excited. I was dispatched to Northamptonshire to investigate security, and found it perfect. It would have given her the privacy she desired. Not overlooked by any other building on the estate and with a small house adjacent to it which could be used for the duty protection officer, the four-bedroomed Garden House suited all her requirements perfectly. Matters reached a stage where she even contacted an interior designer and picked out her colour scheme for the interior. Sadly, after building up her hopes her brother telephoned to say that he was no longer happy about the idea because he was uneasy about the added security presence at Althorp. She was devastated. Unsurprisingly, this disappointment led to a coolness between Diana and her brother for a few months, but it also strengthened in her mind the idea of ridding herself of police protection. ‘He [Charles Spencer] has a point. Why would anyone want all the fuss that goes with me?’ she asked sadly after hearing the news. ‘The fuss’ was clearly a less than oblique reference to me and my team of protection officers.

Despite her triumphs and her popularity, this was a difficult
period, during which the Princess became dangerously self-absorbed. She chose to throw her weight behind two highly emotive and, to her, personal causes – domestic abuse, and eating disorders. In March 1993 she first visited the Chiswick Family Refuge, run by a charismatic and persuasive Canadian, Sandra Horley. It was a charity to which she would devote considerable time over the coming years. Diana joined in the discussion groups with enthusiasm, at one point declaring, ‘Well, ladies, we all know what men can be like, don’t we?’