Diana--A Closely Guarded Secret (5 page)

To survive in the surreal world of Charles and Diana one had to adapt quickly or face eviction. I watched many innocents axed for no greater crime than upsetting the frail sensibilities of either the Prince or Princess. Diana, to her credit, was often the first to admit her capriciousness, and frequently regretted hasty judgments. In fairness to her, as well, her mercurial behaviour should be seen in the context of the tension of her failing marriage. In such circumstances her mood swings were perhaps forgivable, if not excusable.

It must have been terribly embarrassing, if not humiliating, for her to have to hold up her head among her personal staff, most of whom knew that her husband was seeing Mrs Parker Bowles, and had been doing so for a considerable time. The staff were caught in the crossfire of marital disharmony, and had to show discretion about Charles’s involvement with Camilla Parker Bowles or face retribution. Equally, they were aware that, if crossed, Diana was capable of exacting ruthless punishment, and never more so than if she learned of, or even suspected, disloyalty. Conscious of the predicament in which his friendship placed his staff, Charles did at least try to avoid putting them in such an invidious situation. By and large he kept his arrangements private, their trysts only really known to trusted policemen and his most loyal servants. Yet all his
careful plans and calculated evasions fooled no one. Everybody on his staff knew exactly what was going on, but kept it private for fear of being ousted, a certain fate if they were ever caught gossiping. Nevertheless, some regarded the behaviour of their royal employers as an opportunity for personal advancement. History tells of countless devious royal aides and courtiers, prepared to tell tales of a rival’s disloyalty and the indiscretion of others in order to curry royal favour, and the court of Charles and Diana was no different.

While the Prince and Princess conducted their romances in private, their country home, Highgrove, once Charles’s private sanctuary, had now become a marital battleground. As a newcomer, even before Graham’s kitchen-table briefing, I soon appreciated that the marriage was in deep trouble. Charles was at best cold towards his young wife, while she was sometimes hysterical, and at her worst could be simply vile. Privately, she would later repent, but faced with her husband’s coolly distant behaviour towards her, this was her only means of provoking a reaction. The Prince was not prepared to give an inch to his demanding wife; as heir to the British throne, he genuinely believed that his birthright decreed that he did not have to. If that meant upsetting his beautiful princess, then so be it.

I lost count of the number of times the Prince arranged to meet his friends after promising a special dinner with Diana. Her reaction was understandable and often volatile. ‘Stuff your rotten friends, stuff them! – they are not
my
friends,’ she would scream after he revealed that their private plans had been scrapped because he was entertaining some of his circle. Unmoved, the Prince would rejoin his party, explain that the
Princess had retired with a headache, and continue as if nothing had happened.

Such scenes were, however, a symptom, rather than the cause, of the cancer within their marriage. Charles and Diana spent weekends at Highgrove, but it was very rare for them to have an entire weekend there alone together. Visits by Charles’s ex-girlfriends, staff told me, were common. In any event, the house was full of guests; if it was not Sarah Keswick, wife of ‘Chips’ Keswick, it would be the Duchess of York or any number of other acquaintances. Charles appeared to relish the arrival of friends at Highgrove, perhaps because their presence meant that he did not have to spend too long with his wife, whose manner and behaviour he found both irritating and frustrating.

Summer weekends were also dominated by the Prince’s love of polo. Inevitably, his passion for the sport would lead to rows between the royal couple, since Diana found polo both recklessly dangerous and mind-numbingly dull. Matters were made worse by the press. Even when the Princess did bow to pressure and take her sons to the polo field to watch their father play, the photographers inevitably focused on her. Indeed, the only time the press would show any interest in the Prince and polo was either when Diana was present, or when he made a mistake, fell from his pony and injured himself. Nor did his own attitude help. If Diana did attend a polo match and, through no fault of her own, found herself on the front pages the next day, the Prince would complain that she had been playing up to the cameras. ‘Quite the glamour girl,’ he would say disdainfully. The poor woman simply could not
win – she was damned if she attended a match, and damned if she didn’t. When Charles adopted this stance Diana would fly into a rage, whereupon he, desperate to avoid confrontation, would usually wander off to tend to his beloved garden. ‘If only I was as important as your garden. Go on, talk to your flowers!’ was one of her favourite taunts as the discomfited Prince left the room.

Charles’s passion for polo had taken its toll on him over the years, leaving him with serious lower-back problems. He was forced to carry out a series of demanding exercises to free the muscles and ease the pain, which at times left him hardly able to move. Colin Trimming, his protection officer, always carried a special cushion in the car to support the Prince’s back. For myself, I could not understand why he was putting himself through so much pain; it was as if he was trying to prove something to himself. Quick to capitalise on a weakness, Diana persisted with her point scoring. One of her favourite ways to goad him was to urge him to abandon the sport he loved. ‘For heaven’s sake, Charles, why don’t you give up polo? You’re just too old now.’ Given her involvement with James Hewitt, an accomplished polo player, this was probably a little too much for the proud Prince to take. Even so, her barbed comments always silenced him, as he diplomatically chose to ignore her petulance.

By the autumn of 1987, relations between the Prince and Princess had reached an all-time low. By now, they were hardly speaking to each other. Diana, perhaps in a vain attempt to force her husband to take notice of her, seemed to revel in antagonising him. He, in return, would barely acknowledge
her existence. Inevitably, the Princess turned to James Hewitt for solace and support, and I have little doubt that without him she would have been unable to cope.

Yet while she may have been infatuated, she still had a job to do, with the result that she would sometimes go weeks without seeing her lover. I think she preferred it; it kept the relationship fresh, interesting and alive. Most of this I saw at first hand, for although technically I was still William and Harry’s protection officer, I was increasingly chosen to stand in for Graham, as his illness began to take its toll.

Fate is often at its kindest when someone else is suffering its cruelty. As I pondered the possibility of switching to other duties within the Metropolitan Police, once my assignment heading up police protection for Princes William and Harry was completed, it intervened again. Tragic circumstances beyond my control changed the course of my life, and in doing so thrust me into the full glare of the royal spotlight. My friend and colleague, Chief Inspector Graham Smith, the Princess’s senior personal protection officer, was suddenly taken ill. For weeks he had been complaining of a sore throat and bad cough. I had repeatedly urged him to see his doctor but he insisted that it would pass, adding that he did not want to make a fuss. To my horror, and that of many others, when he did eventually seek medical advice, he was diagnosed as suffering from throat cancer. At first, nobody realised quite how serious his condition was, and, typically, he stoically tried to soldier on, vowing that he would beat the disease. Yet although it was to be many agonising months before Graham was to succumb
finally to the cancer, it was soon obvious to everyone, including him, that he was incapable of continuing the active side of his duties fulltime, and that he would have to drive a desk at the headquarters instead.

I was now in overall charge of all aspects of Diana’s life. Among many other things, this meant that, whether she liked it or not, I would now have to know about all the extraneous aspects of her life, including the most private.

I first met James Hewitt at Knightsbridge Barracks in Central London in 1988 soon after my appointment as the Princess’s personal protection officer. I had driven Diana to the barracks, accompanied by Hazel West, her lady-in-waiting, who was there in the role of respectable chaperone. A few minutes after arriving, James came strolling over to greet us, accompanied by another officer, a lieutenant. After some small talk about their riding lesson, Diana gestured to me and said, ‘This is Ken. He has taken over from Graham and will be with me for some time.’ James then proceeded to treat me to that slightly affected, slightly over-enthusiastic welcome which is one of the specialities of the British Army officer. It seemed a little absurd to me and confirmed my preconceived ideas about the so-called ‘officer class’. Of course, they were not all public-school-educated buffoons, but many of them seemed to be excellent impersonations of that stereotype, although James’s manners were always perfect.

For some reason, Hazel always brought a plastic container of cold sausages with her on such days, and would offer them to the men present, including me. Dutifully, Hewitt’s fellow officer
took one of the disgusting-looking sausages and munched on it. Hewitt did the same. I declined. As the lieutenant finished eating, swallowing it practically whole to avoid the horrible thing staying too long in his mouth, he said to the Princess, almost choking, ‘May I say, my lady, that that was possibly the finest sausage I have ever tasted?’ I rather wished I’d taken one of the beastly things, as it would have helped stifle my laughter.

Over the next few months I watched with interest as the romance began to unfold. James was used to the ever-present royal protection officers and was therefore relaxed in our company; I think he somehow believed that our being there meant that his relationship with Diana had been officially sanctioned. It may be that this gave him some comfort; at the very least, official sanction would mean that he no longer had to worry about committing treason. (It is said that a person who attempts sexual relations with a senior member of the royal family may, under certain circumstances, be charged with high treason.)

For all his cavalry-officer’s mannerisms, James was a charming and very likeable man, and we hit it off straight away because we both knew our parameters. As soon as he realised that I was only concerned about the Princess’s safety and not there to judge him, any concern he might have felt evaporated. For her part, Diana hoped that she had at last found a man whom she could trust. He injected excitement and youthful vitality into her life at a time when she really needed to be loved. This was something her husband found it impossible to do, even if he had been inclined to. Yet Charles was no fool. He knew what was going on between Hewitt and his wife,
and it seems clear now that, after years of difficult marriage, he was very happy for it to continue. It suited him. In purely selfish terms I could see his reasoning. If another man was keeping his wife happy it meant less trouble for him. Diana craved attention, and, lacking it, was often spoiling for a fight. With James on the scene, however, she became mellow, more contented, and, most importantly for the Prince, less obsessed about his own friendship with Camilla Parker Bowles. Later, he claimed he only took up that liaison again after his marriage had irretrievably broken down. In reality I believe he had never stopped loving Camilla.

At first, Diana preferred not to talk openly to me about her affair. This was understandable, if a little disingenuous. Our journeys back to London from the West Country, where James’s mother had a cottage that became the secret scene of most of their trysts, were often a little tense, and I could almost feel her embarrassment.

‘Nothing is going on, Ken,’ she would say, her face flushed red. ‘Of course not, ma’am,’ I would answer. ‘Whatever you say. You know my only concern is for your safety.’

She must have thought that I was blind, or stupid, or both. After all, creaking floorboards in an old English cottage can speak louder than the most frank confession.

Despite the secrecy, however, her passion nearly brought disaster. On our journeys back to London, she would often take the wheel and, buoyed by the exhilaration of her secret love, had a tendency to drive too fast, frequently exceeding the legal speed limit. I repeatedly told her to slow down, but she would comply reluctantly. One incident, however, did make her
more cautious in her driving, at least temporarily. As she raced back from one of her illicit meetings with Hewitt at around 100 mph, I spotted a patrol car following us at speed. The flashing blue light and the blare of the siren followed. Diana flushed scarlet with guilt as she began to pull over.

‘Ken, you’ll have to sort this out,’ she said defiantly as we braked to a stop. The police car pulled up behind us, and I watched in the wing mirror as its driver climbed out, put on his cap and walked towards us.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ I said quietly, ‘you’re on your own. I have warned you about your speed, and I am not here to cover up this offence.’ The unfortunate traffic officer got the surprise of his life when he realised that he had stopped the Princess of Wales. I got out of the car, identified myself and had a quiet word with him, telling him that it was not my job to intervene in any way. He then asked me if I wanted to deal with it but, making sure we were out of the Princess’s hearing, I told him that it was outside my jurisdiction and that it was entirely up to him as to how he chose to deal with the situation. Diana, with her eyes at their most doe-like and her head tilted sheepishly to one side, stepped out of the car and was then given a polite reprimand by the officer, who would have been entirely within his rights to report her. Being the Princess of Wales had its advantages, however. She escaped with a verbal caution and was told to slow down in future. I drove the rest of the way home and Diana, aware that explaining to her husband why she was in the West Country would have taken some doing, was certainly very relieved. For the next few weeks, at least, I noticed a distinct change in her driving
style, although it was not long before she was back to her old speed-obsessed ways.