Well I am back and thankyou to everyone who has left me kind comments and also emails. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.
A brain fog descended as well and I found I could not concentrate on any serious reading so I was pleased when The Palace Papers arrived. Totally engrossing, gossipy and unputdownable. I read it in bed with a cup of tea, cosy and comfortable and thoroughtly enjoyed every page.
It is odd how you remember things and all the time I was reading this quote kept coming into my mind. I tracked it down and it turned out to be Kipling “For the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin”.
The reason for this is that I am always puzzled at the way in which we still expect the Royal Family to be better behaved and better all round human beings that us – because we do. I am a grandmother, been married and divorced twice, had relationships with people I should not have done, and done stupid things in my youth. But I have never been held to account or my follies plastered all over the pages of the tabloids.
In the Palace Papers, Tina Brown has shown us quite clearly that the House of Windsor is not so different from us in behaviour and folly. Feuds, adultery, inter sibling rivalry, jealousy – it is all there. The Prince of Wales when asked how he thought the public viewed them answered “as a non-stop soap opera” and few could argue with this.
The author is the former editor in chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker and a Commander of the British Empire awarded for her services to journalism. She has obviously done her research and with her media contacts has been the recipient of many confidences and information from those within the Palace. The family dynamics are laid bare and while I have always been fond of Prince Charles and admired him, after reading this, I feel increasingly sympathetic towards him though he does tend to go on a bit and feel sorry for himself. A trait inherited in spades by his younger son.
In his interview with Jonathan Dimbleby who wrote his biography, the Prince accused his mother of being distant and his father being a bit of a bully. We are told that the Queen was deeply hurt by this and the author has no hesitation is saying because Her Majesty probably realised it was true. She also made the point that in a tv programme about the Duke of Edinburgh shortly after he died, Charles was reminiscing abut his father and the main thrust was that his father was always “showing him how to do things” and “exhorting him to get on with it”. It was said with a smile but it had obviously not been forgotten.
I have never been a member of the Cult of St Diana and the more I read about her the more I feel for Charles. If ever a disaster was in the making it was their marriage. Diana was damaged by her childhood as was Charles and neither of them could help each other and the more Diana lashed out the more Charles retreated and the worse it got.
(Funnily enough I came across her earlier book the Diana Chronicles in a charity shop the other day and picked it up and after reading that my reaction was to feel for Charles even more. He was not without blame of course, but he just could not cope with somebody like Diana)
The two children suffered as we all know by now but I find it hard to forgive Diana for her Bashir interview in which she traduced her father to millions of viewers with no thought as to the feelings of William and Harry. We now know Bashir deceived her and we are also meant to believe she regretted the interview. Tina Brown makes it clear that Diana felt nothing of the sort and was gleeful that she had done it.
The author is pretty dismissive of the behaviour of Harry and Megan or Ginge and Winge as they are known in some tabloid quarters, but at the same time tries to be fair to Megan aware that an American actress coming to join the Royal Family and live in the UK would find it a difficult. She makes the point, however, that Megan did not even bother to try.
And so it continues. It is a never ending family saga which will be eternally intriguing and fascinating to most of us. I have to make the point that compared to previous Kings and Queens, the current members of the House of Windsor compare quite well to the lives of earlier occupants of the throne.
We should be grateful that at least George V did not have six wives………..
