The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor. Penny Junor

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       ONE

       An Extraordinary Way to Live

      My first encounter with Buckingham Palace was in 1981. The Prince of Wales had just married Lady Diana Spencer in a spectacular ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral; the country had been in a fever of excitement for months and I had been commissioned to write a biography of the bride. I approached the Palace and was instantly rebuffed. A letter on thick cream paper with Buckingham Palace at the top of the page, embossed in red, but with no address, informed me that they would not be able to help in any way. It was signed by Michael Shea, Press Secretary to HM The Queen – a very nice man, I subsequently discovered, an ex-diplomat, who is now an author himself, although not of royal books.

      Four months later I wrote again and Michael Shea invited me in to see him. I will never forget the sensation of scrunching across the pink gravel at the front of Buckingham Palace, watched by dozens of Japanese tourists and busloads from Burnley, and stepping through the Privy Purse door at the extreme right of the building, into a world where time seemed to have stopped. Outside were guards standing stock-still in scarlet coats and black bearskins, with rifles beside their right ears, which immediately brought to mind A. A. Milne’s refrain about changing guard at Buckingham Palace. Inside were footmen in red waistcoats and tails and I was invited to wait in a room beautifully furnished with antiques. A copy of The Times – I am tempted to say, crisply ironed, but that would be a lie – lay on a table.

      Michael Shea appeared, friendly palm outstretched, and took me down wide red-carpeted corridors into his office, another room beautifully furnished with antiques; not as one might have expected the communications centre of the British monarchy to have looked in 1981. But then there was no great tradition of helping the media at the Palace. Up until just thirteen years before, the man in Shea’s shoes was known as ‘The Abominable No Man’. Commander Richard Colville hated the press and for the twenty years he held the job he made no secret of his contempt. Newspapers didn’t even bother ringing the Palace when a royal story cropped up because they knew there would be no comment. Every other organization I had dealt with took public relations seriously; press officers went out of their way to help journalists and writers get the material they needed, aware that a good relationship could be extremely useful all round. Michael Shea was charm itself, but I wasn’t convinced that the Palace had come far from the days when the colour and fabric of the Queen’s outfit was their stock in trade. And in the absence of reliable guidance, journalists were apt to make mistakes, and in extremis to make things up.

      These days they are more inventive. On 20 November 2003 the Royal Family awoke to the news that for the last two months they had had an impostor in their midst. Ryan Parry, a Daily Mirror reporter, had applied for a job as a trainee footman at Buckingham Palace, and, despite giving dodgy references, had been given a job which brought him into direct contact with members of the Royal Family. He was given a security pass that allowed him access to all areas and within days he had been shown the hiding place for skeleton keys to open every door in the Palace. He was still in situ when President Bush arrived on his state visit, amidst one of the tightest and most expensive security operations ever mounted in Britain. Not once was Parry questioned and not once were bags that he brought into the Palace checked. For two months he carried a camera in his pocket and the photographs he took of private areas, including bedrooms, were spread across the pages of the Daily Mirror for two days until the Palace sought an injunction to stop any more material being published.

      It was a terrifying breach of security. Parry repeatedly pointed out that, had he been a terrorist, he could have killed the Queen or any member of the Royal Family. He could even have killed the President of the United States.

      But as Edward Griffiths, the Deputy Master of the Household who employed the man, points out, he wasn’t. ‘He was neither a criminal nor had links with terrorists. In that sense he passed all the security checks.’ What the system doesn’t allow for is journalists posing as would-be terrorists.

      Parry’s stunt was dressed up as a security alert. And, post 9/11, terrorism is a very real threat, although I’d have thought today’s suicide bombers are unlikely to go through the charade of applying for a post as an under-footman at Buckingham Palace. There must be quicker and more spectacular methods of blowing up the Queen or annihilating the British Royal Family. This was simply the most audacious assault yet on the Queen’s privacy and the privacy of other members of her family. And that was what had copies of the Daily Mirror flying off the shelves and newspapers and television channels all over the world reproducing the pictures. It was nothing more noble than the desire to see how the most famous family in Britain, notoriously secretive about its private life, actually lives. And the surprise was that the Queen, who lives in such grand palaces and castles, wears priceless diamonds and jewels and is reputed to be one of the richest women in the world, keeps her breakfast cornflakes in plastic Tupperware boxes, and when she’s not hosting state banquets for 160 she has supper in front of the television watching serials and soaps.

      The word dysfunctional has often been used to describe the House of Windsor and it’s hard to find a better word. It’s equally hard to know why they behave so strangely. It is not that there is a lack of affection. The Prince of Wales has a tricky relationship with his father but that aside, the family are all very fond of one another, and in private there are great displays of affection when they meet and a lot of jokes and laughter. But they don’t talk to one another in the way that most families who enjoy one another’s company do. They don’t pick up the phone when they have something to say, and would never dream of saying ‘What a brilliant speech you gave last Wednesday’ – praise for each other’s achievements is not something they go in for – or ‘I’ve got a free evening, what are you up to?’ They write memos to each other or liaise through private secretaries.

      And yet it seems to be only contact within the family that they find so difficult. They all make phone calls perfectly happily to courtiers, friends, government ministers and the people running their charities. Indeed, the Prince of Wales is seldom off the phone, as his private secretaries, and more particularly their wives, know all too well. He often makes calls himself – although ever since he announced who was calling and the voice at the other end said, ‘Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba’, he has said it is his Private Secretary calling until he is certain he has the person he wants.

      The inter-family formality is perhaps a result of there being no clear distinction between their business and personal lives. They are on duty so much of the time and live so much on top of the job that they see more of their private secretaries than they do of their spouses or children. Yet although the relationship with their private secretaries is close, it is almost never a personal one. While the private secretaries are in post they are indispensable, not just in running their principals’ lives but also as sounding boards and occasionally confidants. They know everything that goes on, everything that passes through their bosses’ heads. But they are never friends, and as soon as they have gone, and someone else is in post, with very few exceptions they are lucky if they get a Christmas card.

      The time of my first meeting with Michael Shea in 1981 were heady days for the House of Windsor. The wedding had been a triumph – ‘the stuff of which fairy tales are made’ as the Archbishop of Canterbury had said in his address. Diana, who was tall, leggy and gloriously photogenic, was on her way to becoming a superstar, and after months of recession, depression and inner-city riots, extravagant though it was, a full-blown state wedding with grand coaches and all the paraphernalia СКАЧАТЬ