Shadows of a Princess. Patrick Jephson

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СКАЧАТЬ that first day I was surprised by the variety of my fellow lunchers. There were the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting – treated with universal respect – and the Queen’s private secretaries – also treated with respect, at least by me. But there were others further down the hierarchy who hinted at the bewildering diversity of the royal household. There was the captain of the Queen’s Flight looking smooth. There was the keeper of the Royal Collection, looking not at all like Anthony Blunt. There was the press secretary, wearing his poker-player’s face. And there was the senior policeman, looking surprised to find himself there at all.

      I am sure I did too. My morale was soon boosted when, in a ceremony that beat all the majestic pomp and circumstance of the British Crown, the duty footman dymo-taped my name on to a napkin ring. I may only have been temporary, and I would often lunch somewhere else, but now I was a member of the club.

      That first afternoon I strolled back across the park to St James’s feeling pretty pleased with myself. It was a sensation that soon became unfamiliar. The job often made me feel so anxious that the outward perks – even my own napkin ring – seemed like a bad joke. On some days I would have swapped them all for a friendly Portakabin somewhere, anywhere, else. As I returned to my new office that day, however, I was beginning to believe that I could act my part. From my temporary perch I felt the first stirrings of confidence as I measured Richard’s desk with my eye and contemplated a suitable fate for his Australian beer mat if he was careless enough to leave it behind when he moved along the corridor to his new post as comptroller.

      The afternoon’s programme was intended to begin my education in Palace life. I was to meet two of the more significant Palace office-holders for ‘a chat’, and in their own way they neatly illustrated the latent tensions that I had detected at lunch. There was an old guard, almost literally. They were mostly ex-Guards Regiment, not very qualified in anything very much, but at least superficially friendly, if tending to be dogmatic about How Things Should Be Done. Then there was a younger guard, less overtly military, less dogmatic, no less friendly and arguably better qualified. As members of the heir’s office, we were usually grouped with this second category, not least by temperament.

      The royal household is sometimes still caricatured as being made up of faceless courtiers drawn from public schools and the Army. During my time there, it was still quite true that both types were in the majority. Even those from a City or diplomatic background had mostly worn uniform at some stage, but despite a predictably establishment outlook – which I shared – most also had a very realistic attitude to the institution they served. They had inherited a hidebound, antique machine. To make it work they had to be highly effective in the real world of power and personalities which ran national life – but they also had to be sensitive to the hothouse family politics of the royal world. It was sometimes an impossible job. Failure was always headline news and any success had to be passed modestly upwards.

      In a minority of cases, however, it was painfully apparent that the only journey some had taken to be reborn as courtiers was the short march from Wellington Barracks to Buckingham Palace. Their tone and style of working were therefore vaguely familiar to anyone who had ever humoured an unstable commanding officer or in turn meted out patronizing encouragement to a subordinate. My first ‘chat’ was with a prime specimen of this type. Order, precedent and self-preservation were everything to him, which left little room, I observed, for intellect. It became apparent quite early in our conversation that it also left little room for humour, insight, empathy or outside interests of any kind. These were optional in his post and, I suspected, in his world.

      He clearly had a dilemma. His self-appointed task was to brief junior new arrivals such as myself about aspects of life at court. Under this heading he included the history of the British monarchy (a bizarre account of his own making), its relevance to modern Britain (akin to his own), and how an insect such as I should hold his knife and fork (an exaggeration, but only just). This performance may have been for our benefit but it was undoubtedly also for his own, since it gave us newcomers a wonderful opportunity to marvel at his mastery of arcane and irrelevant information. However, he plainly suffered doubts as to whether we were suitable receptacles for such priceless wisdom. I fear I did little to set his mind at rest, either then or in our subsequent uneasy encounters.

      ‘Above all,’ he said, leaning forward for emphasis and fixing me with a watery glare, ‘we don’t want any nonsenses! Nonsenses always lead to nausea!’ He sat back, obviously feeling that no further explanation was required. There was a pause, presumably to allow me to dwell on my capacity for nonsenses. It seemed infinite to both of us.

      ‘Thank you,’ I said, already aware that hollow pleasantries would be a necessity of life in this place. Then, seeing an opportunity, I added, ‘I really should be getting back …’

      He took this news quite well, despite the fact that he had barely warmed to his theme. He left me feeling that I was but a passing aberration on the seamless splendour of royal existence. That may have been quite true, but it did not stop me outlasting him by many years.

      Looking back, I now know that he was an exception to the general rule about the Queen’s advisers who, almost to a man, I found to embody the qualities for which I unkindly judged this particular individual had no excess cranial capacity. At the time, however, I thought him a caricature and a good example of a species on the edge of extinction – which, incidentally, is where it remains.

      My next encounter was with a representative of the newer generation. Back at St James’s, I had time for a chipped mug of weak tea before the next stage of my indoctrination. I knew instinctively that I was about to learn matters of real relevance from an instructor who would closely monitor my performance, or lack of it. She would become one of the two most important women in my working life: the lady-in-waiting and assistant private secretary to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, Miss Anne Beckwith-Smith.

      Anne had been with the Princess from the start. In a world built on precedent, she had created most of the procedures and conventions by which even our little office needed to function. She set an example of dignity and common sense which belied our subordinate status. Later I discovered that she was also a lot of fun. But on day one I recognized her as a formidable ambassador for her mistress, unlikely to be tolerant of any backsliding on my part.

      Her office was the most attractive in St James’s. Formerly a royal dressing room (when our quarters had been a royal residence), it retained an air of domesticity enhanced by Anne’s tasteful choice of decor. A wide bay window looked down into Ambassador’s Court, offering an ideal vantage point from which to observe the daily traffic of the Palace’s visitors and occupants. To me it seemed like a boudoir crossed with a throne room, an impression reinforced as I approached the desk behind which Anne presided with a magisterial presence.

      She was just one of many courtiers who had a difficult decision to make when faced with a new recruit such as myself: How much do we tell him? For the next half hour I listened attentively to Anne’s introduction to the workings of the Princess’s office, and although this was accurate and informative, it left me still largely ignorant about the most important factor of all, namely what went on in the mind of the Princess. By what Anne left out on this subject I drew a generally accurate conclusion about Palace life – admit nothing to anyone, especially if they are new. Let them find out for themselves, the hard way.

      In obedience to this principle Anne stuck to what I naively thought were trivia. She explained my responsibility to look after the ladies-in-waiting who would accompany the Princess on all her official engagements. ‘You must make sure they have their programme and briefing notes at least a week before each engagement,’ she told me, rather optimistically as it turned out. ‘And you must help them out whenever they need helping out.’

      Out of what? I wondered. Cars? Lifts? In fact it was both, among many other things, including that state of Siberian ostracism to which our mistress СКАЧАТЬ