by Penny Junor
It was less funny perhaps for Harry, who just a few days later began his first term at boarding school. The phone conversation had taken place some time before its publication, late at night on New Year’s Eve in 1989. Diana was on a landline at Sandringham and Gilbey in a car parked in Oxfordshire. It was said a radio ham in Oxford picked it up, but some suspected GCHQ, MI5’s listening post in Cheltenham was involved. In the light of the phone-hacking trials, in which journalists and former executives of two News International newspapers were on trial for intercepting mobile phone messages, it is perfectly possible it was neither.
Harry was still just seven when he arrived at Ludgrove in September 1992. As before, his birthday made him young for his academic year but, because of the atmosphere at home, the move away came not a moment too soon. Boarding came as a shock, as it does to most children, whatever age they start, but Ludgrove provided a safe environment for both boys during this period when their family life was disintegrating and the people they loved most were tearing each other apart. Ludgrove is a small, family-run private preparatory school set in 130 acres of Berkshire countryside near Wokingham. It has been in the same family for three generations: today Simon Barber is headmaster and his wife, Sophie, is responsible for the pastoral care of the boys. In William and Harry’s day it was Simon’s parents, Gerald and Janet Barber, and a co-headmaster, Nichol Marston. Charles and Diana had their differences, but they were united in their choice of schools for the boys and they always put on a show of unity for school events.
Ludgrove is about as homely as a school could be. One little boy remarked, “It’s like having a giant sleepover.” In the first year there are plenty of female staff around, the dormitories are full of soft toys, posters and superheroes adorn the bedding and the emphasis is not on work, but on settling in, making friends and having fun. The boys have their lunch ahead of everyone else, they go to bed ahead of everyone else and they go down to the headmaster’s homely sitting room in their pajamas every Sunday evening for stories. Simon Barber readily acknowledges that some boys miss home, but says, “when they’re busy, all together, all doing the same thing, full boarding, they have such fun. And if they are homesick, there’s a massive support network from their own peer group and the adult population. The boys form very close and loyal friendships because they’re all in it together and remain friends for life, a lot of them. They have a common bond and when they have reunions they become prep school boys again.”
The Barbers senior kept a watchful eye on both Princes. They didn’t give them special treatment but they were well aware of the difficulties at home—there was scarcely a man or woman in the country who wasn’t. With just over 180 boys aged between eight and thirteen, the school is small enough and the staff ratio high enough for them to know exactly how each boy is faring inside and outside the classroom. Janet was like a mother to “my boys,” as she called them—and still calls them when she meets an old Ludgrovian today, no matter what their age. She quickly picked up on problems and if a child was unsettled for any reason, she stepped in straightaway to help, as if he were her own son. It is unlikely that she ever had to support another child through the particular difficulties Harry was experiencing. But she and her husband were key to helping Harry survive those years.
Harry did not shine academically. But it was clear from early on that he had a talent for sport and some of the other extracurricular activities. Ludgrove offers every sport imaginable. As well as the more usual ball games—cricket, football, rugby and tennis—at which Harry excelled, they play squash, Eton fives and golf on their own nine-hole golf course. The boys make dens in the woods and in summer occasionally camp on the golf course and have singsongs around a campfire. The school is also big on music, theater and art, and an old milking parlor has been turned into an art block where boys can also do ceramics and carpentry. Newspapers were delivered daily and every morning they discussed current affairs, with a test every Saturday. It was not unusual during William and Harry’s years at the school for the Barbers to pretend that the papers hadn’t been delivered to protect them from the skirmishes in the War of the Waleses that were being played out on the front pages.
During that first term, the papers were full of a disastrous trip his parents took to Korea. Diana refused to go at first, but it had been arranged months in advance, as all royal tours are, and the Queen intervened. Only then did she agree—but she didn’t go with good grace. She made no attempt to disguise her feelings. A performer of the first order, she looked sad and miserable and frequently on the verge of tears. The Prince looked no happier and, although he worked hard to cover up for her by doing all the talking and smiling, nothing could salvage the situation. In private, they could not bring themselves to look at each other, let alone exchange a civil word. They even stopped pretending in front of their staff. The media talked about nothing but the state of the marriage. Peter Westmacott, the Deputy Private Secretary (now British Ambassador in Washington) with the unenviable task of accompanying them, took aside the Daily Mirror’s royal reporter, the late James Whitaker, to complain. Whitaker was sympathetic but commented, “Peter, you really can’t say this is a marriage made in heaven.”
“I am not saying it is,” said Westmacott. “What I am saying is that you guys are getting it so grossly wrong, you’re misreporting what’s going on and ignoring the substance of the visit.”
Two hours later Sky News was interrupting broadcasts to say, “Palace official confirms marriage is on the rocks.” The next day the tabloids were full of the story: “Palace official in gaffe,” “Palace office confirms marriage over.” When a horrified Westmacott tried to explain to his boss what had happened, the Prince was understanding. He had always felt, he said, “It was a waste of time trying to talk sense to these people.”
As for the Princess, she was hell-bent on separation. Westmacott spent the flight to Hong Kong trying to talk her out of it. It would be best for everyone, he argued, if they could find a modus vivendi. She had her own friends, her own life, the children had the stability of two parents and she was good at her job. Why did she want to destroy it all? His words fell on deaf ears. She was determined.
SEPARATION
William was ten, and Harry just eight and still struggling to settle into the alien world of boarding when the Princess made her move. It was very soon after the Korean fiasco and once again she used the children to outmaneuver Charles. Every year the Prince and Princess had hosted a shooting party at Sandringham for sixteen friends, who came to stay for three days with their children, and the Prince had organized it, as he always did, around the children’s half-term. In 1992 that was the weekend of 20 and 21 November, William and Harry had been looking forward to it and so had the Prince of Wales; the boys loved Sandringham, loved shooting with their father and were excited about seeing their friends. But it was not to be.
Less than a week beforehand, Charles discovered that Diana had decided to take the children to stay with the Queen at Windsor Castle instead. (Friday 20 November was, coincidentally, the date of a devastating fire at the castle, which occurred while the Queen was in residence, raged for fifteen hours and caused millions of pounds’ worth of damage.) Charles explained the situation to his mother who then spoke to Diana, but the Princess announced that if she couldn’t go to Windsor then she would take the boys to Highgrove. Charles asked whether she might not at least let the boys come to Sandringham, even if she was determined to stay away herself, but she refused. On the advice of her lawyer, she wrote a careful letter of explanation in which she said that she felt the atmosphere at Sandringham would not be conducive to a happy weekend for the children. Nor could she be sure that he would not expose them to guests whose presence would be unwelcome to her (she meant Camilla). The Prince’s patience finally snapped. Painful though it would be for everyone, there was no alternative but to call a halt to the marriage.
Thus, on the afternoon of 9 December 1992, John Major, then Prime Minister, stood up at the d
ispatch box in the House of Commons before a packed but silent House and read aloud the following statement: “It is announced from Buckingham Palace that, with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate. Their Royal Highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected. This decision has been reached amicably and they will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children.”
The Prince was on a Business in the Community visit to Holyhead that day, accompanied by its Chief Executive, Julia Cleverdon. They had worked together closely for ten years, and that afternoon he told her about the separation. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen him so deeply miserable.
It was a Wednesday, the day of the nativity play at Ludgrove, which for the First Years was held in the afternoon. Prince Charles was there for Harry.
He and the Princess had both been down to Ludgrove in advance of the Prime Minister’s statement to explain the situation first to the Barbers and then, in the homely surroundings of the headmaster’s sitting room, to break the news to their sons. William’s rather grown-up response was to hope that they would both be happier now. He let more of his feelings be known, perhaps, in a letter to his trusted nanny, Olga Powell. She wrote him a very personal letter back consoling him about the impending separation. Harry had always managed to take these emotional tsunamis in his stride—at least on the outside.
The households were swiftly divided. Diana took sole possession of Kensington Palace and kept the two senior butlers, Harold Brown and Paul Burrell. Charles took butler number three, Bernie Flannery, and continued to live at Highgrove; he took over York House, within the St. James’s Palace complex, as a London home. They kept their joint office at St. James’s Palace, where the two teams were united and cooperative with one another, particularly over arrangements for the children, whose time was divided between the two of them.
That Christmas, just two weeks later, in her traditional television broadcast to the nation, the Queen described 1992 as “a somber year.” In the space of eight months, The Duke and the Duchess of York separated, the Princess Royal divorced her husband Mark Phillips, Andrew Morton’s book was published, the Duchess of York was photographed having her toes sucked by her financial advisor, there was the fire at Windsor Castle—which of all her residences is the one the Queen most regards as home—and her son and heir separated from his wife.
Diana turned down the Queen’s invitation to spend Christmas at Sandringham and went instead to her brother at Althorp. It was the first time the boys had been without her on that most special of all days and, although she rang them on Christmas morning, it was not the same. However, five days later they were jetting off to the Caribbean with Diana’s friend Catherine Soames and her son. It could and should have been a glorious holiday, but they were followed by the press. It was the same when they went skiing in Lech a couple of months later. Everywhere they went with their mother, the cameras went too, and she insisted they smile for them. Even the excitement of hurtling down hair-raising rides with their mother on outings to Thorpe Park were marred by the ubiquitous bank of lenses.
It was no coincidence the cameras knew where to find them. Diana tipped them off. She was heavily engaged in a campaign to win public approval. She was seen to be the one who took the boys to theme parks, cinemas, McDonald’s and on foreign holidays—with her they had fun. All Charles was ever seen to do was take them hunting, shooting or fishing—all of them elitist sports—or to church dressed in suits and ties. With her they looked like children, decked out in jeans and baseball caps. The public was left to draw its own conclusions.
No sooner were William and Harry back at school for the spring term, in January 1993, than another tape recording was making news. This time it was the Daily Mirror that led the field in publishing the intimate late-night telephone ramblings between Charles and Camilla. It was the ultimate invasion of privacy and humiliation. Though she must have enjoyed a little Schadenfreude, even Diana was embarrassed on his behalf. Eleven minutes of tape could be distilled into one: the Prince of Wales musing the possibility of turning into a Tampax so as to always be close to the woman he adored.
Dubbed Camillagate, it provoked a puritanical outburst that verged on hysteria. Questions were asked about his fitness to be King and, in the mounting fever, there were demands from Cabinet ministers that he give up Mrs. Parker Bowles. Meanwhile the cartoonists went to town.
The Prince of Wales was mortified and not just for himself—for Camilla, who was bombarded with hateful letters and accused of breaking up the royal marriage, for his children, for her children, for everyone inadvertently dragged into this horrible mess, and for the monarchy itself. His private life had yet again damaged the institution that his mother had dedicated her life to protecting, and that he in turn must protect for his son. He was furious that his phone had been illegally bugged and furious that the press had published the tape; but he was also humiliated beyond words.
Unlike the Squidgygate tape, this was not just one conversation but a compilation of several they had had over several months around Christmas 1989—shortly before Diana’s conversation was recorded. Where it came from and who made it has never been determined but, like Diana’s, it wasn’t published until four years later. In response to calls for an investigation, the Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, told the House of Commons, “There is nothing to investigate… I am absolutely certain that the allegation that this is anything to do with the security services of GCHQ… is being put out by newspapers, who I think feel rather guilty that they are using plainly tapped telephone calls.”
Diana had always believed that her telephone conversations were being listened into—she suspected the Buckingham Palace switchboard—but her concerns were, not surprisingly, dismissed as paranoia. However, ten years later, stories were again inexplicably appearing in the tabloids, so much so that William and Harry began to think their friends were responsible. They began to feel they couldn’t trust anyone. It was another ten years or so after this that the phone-hacking scandal came to light, suggesting that Diana’s fears might not have been so paranoid after all. In 2007 Clive Goodman, the former News of the World royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, were sent to jail for hacking William and Harry’s voicemail, but the practice turned out to have been far more widespread. Police investigations culminated in the trial in 2014 of two former editors, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks (née Wade) and five others. During the trial it transpired that Goodman had been in possession of a copy of the Green Book, a telephone directory containing all the home numbers of the Royal Family.
William had made very good friends when he started at Ludgrove with another new boy called Thomas van Straubenzee, whose younger brother, Henry, began at the same time as Harry. Henry and Harry also became very close friends and, although the two sets of brothers went on to different schools after Ludgrove (William and Harry to Eton, the van Straubenzees to Harrow), for the next few years the four boys moved as one. And, true to Ludgrove form, formed friendships that lasted into adulthood. They visited each other during the school holidays, they went on holidays together and very much became part of each other’s families. There was an extra bond, perhaps, because Tom and Henry were two of the few friends who had known Diana.
By coincidence, Tom and Henry’s parents, Claire and her husband Alex van Straubenzee, had both known the Spencer family for many years. Claire had worked with Sarah at Vogue in the early 1970s, and Diana had been one of Claire’s sister’s best friends. Alex subsequently stayed in Sarah’s flat in Fulham for a while when he first came out of the Army in 1979. She shared it with three or four other girls, and Diana was their cleaner, coming in two hours a week. Schoolfriends say she had been obsessively clean and tidy; on weekends out when she stayed in her sisters’ flats in London, she had happily done their washing and housework—with hindsight, all classic psychological symptoms that might have indicated an eating disorder.
The boys were very young when they first went—ten and eight—and their policemen were almost like nannies. Once, Harry cut his leg on some barnacles and started to cry. The child was clearly in agony. His leg was bleeding profusely and the salt water was making it sting. “Harry, pull yourself together and stop whingeing,” said his PPO, Graham Cracker. “It’s just a scratch.” When a concerned Mrs. Van tried to intervene, he batted her away. “He’s perfectly all right.”
What both boys liked about going to Cornwall with the van Straubenzees was that it was a perfectly normal English family holiday. It was what all the other boys at Ludgrove did as well, so they felt normal. It was bucket and spade, sandcastles, cricket and volleyball on the beach; they could walk down to the center of the village from the house, and go into the shops or the little Spar supermarket, and with baseball caps pulled down low, nobody noticed them. In any case, the shopkeepers were all used to seeing them. They could catch shrimps in the rock pools at low tide, which they barbecued, and they could put on their wetsuits, take their boards and surf when the wind was up. It was organized chaos, and in the mornings they would all eat Mrs. Van’s famous cooked breakfasts (as they still do when they visit). Sometimes, when they were a bit older, the boys would go to the Mariners, the pub at Rock that became the mecca for drunken, rowdy and mostly underage public school children, but they didn’t much enjoy it because they were usually recognized and pestered. Conversely, although they were often spotted in the garden by people walking their dogs past the house, they were never pestered or photographed there.
