On Duty With the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Secretary

by Dickie Arbiter

  Only then is an invitation issued by the host country’s head of state and plans drawn up for what the visit should entail. Getting the right programme mix is always a challenge for the private secretary. Such an invitation marks the start of intense negotiations. Their Royal Highnesses’ private office will suggest certain events or locations. The British Ambassador will put forth his own list of proposals that the British Government would like for the royal in question to do. Finally, the host country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will push for the inclusion of its own ‘must sees and dos’ in order to best present its country to the world’s press.

  The planning stage is a little like an extended game of poker, involving tactics, gamesmanship, fierce negotiation and, inevitably, winners and losers. At the same time, there’s honour among all sides. When one concedes something, he generally gets something in return.

  Sensibly, the royals stay out of this process until the point when they see the proposed programme. Then it is up to the private secretary to explain to whichever principal why certain events have been included. That done and agreed upon, the Royals themselves take centre stage. Once the day of the visit dawns, it’s show time.

  Given the various motivations involved in doing them, royal visits abroad generally necessitate a protracted and strategic dance. The 1989 visit to Indonesia – primarily taking place to boost exports there from the UK – was no exception. Once the rough outline was agreed upon, the tour leader, private secretary David Wright, would use all of the diplomatic skills at his disposal to finally present the proposed programme to the Prince and Princess. Though it was they who would ultimately sign off on the proposal, there was the usual input from both the Foreign Office and the host country, which weren’t always of similar mind.

  The private secretary that leads foreign visits is always a secondee from the Foreign Office, with a clear remit in terms of the interests of the UK. For this tour we were in the capable hands of David Wright. His diplomatic skills were much needed as well, because for months our ambassador in Jakarta had been trying to arrange a conference between British weapons manufacturers and Indonesia’s defense ministry and military – an attempt to boost British arms sales. The Indonesians, however, were lukewarm to any such arms conference, regardless of the dangled carrot that was the ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales’.

  There was much to be decided, and during the four-day recce we visited a number of options which, at least in principle, would work for all three interested parties. The royal couple would experience the country’s culture on the island of Java, with a visit to the 9th century Mahāyāna Buddhist temple at Borobudur. The environment would be addressed with the inauguration of a desperately needed water purification plant. In acknowledgment of Indonesian tradition, a wreath would be laid at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. There would be a visit to Jakarta’s Sitanala leprosy hospital, and finally, trade talks would be discussed at reception at which the Prince would give a keynote speech.

  After four hectic days and much debate and gladhanding, we left Jakarta with the understanding that we had an acceptable programme. What we didn’t know (and were only to discover when the equerry, Lt Commander Patrick Jephson and I returned two days in advance of the royal visit) was that President Suharto wasn’t pleased with the agreed upon programme which, it turned out, he had only seen a few days prior to the Prince and Princess’s arrival.

  He was therefore very keen to change it. He made it clear to us that he didn’t like the idea of the Princess going to the leprosy hospital, in particular. ‘Why would she want to go and see lots of sick people’ he wanted to know, ‘when she could visit the Taman Mini cultural park or – much more her thing – go to a fashion show?’

  The Princess’s interests and passions aside – all of which we knew well – it soon became obvious that Taman Mini was Mrs Suharto’s pet project. Self-serving interests were undoubtedly being put into play. This might also have been a factor in his displeasure at the Prince visiting the water purification plant, as it was based in an overcrowded shanty-town.

  Patrick Jephson, an excellent naval officer, which might account for his unflappability, did what he was best at in the face of last-minute programme changes – found solutions that would satisfy everyone. Thousands of miles away from his seniors at St James’s Palace, he tweaked the programme just enough to hopefully calm the president and keep everyone else happy. The Prince and Princess would go to Taman Mini, with the understanding that she could still visit the Sitanala leprosy hospital. The Prince would personally inaugurate the British-designed water purification plant. After all, the plant made stagnant, undrinkable water safe while also providing electricity for 6,000 villages, all of which would surely present the President in the best possible light.

  Still, Suharto objected, primarily to the suggestion of the Prince visiting a shanty-town – a place he felt no Prince should go. But Patrick dug in his heels and insisted that this, being an environmental project, was of great personal interest to His Royal Highness…not to mention a benefit to the community.

  The Indonesians reluctantly relented and, as we were to find out, at great cost. When we arrived at the location for a final check before His Royal Highness’s arrival, we found a dusty track which connected to a stagnant, heavily polluted canal brimful of general and human waste and with the occasional dead animal floating by.

  This was reality. We could live with it. We certainly knew it wouldn’t faze His Royal Highness. But, as it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Scant hours before the visit, the Indonesians dredged the canal till the water ran clear and without flotsam. They had also covered the entire track with granite chippings.

  We subsequently learned that within an hour of Charles’s departure, the garbage was back floating its merry way down the canal and every last chip of granite had disappeared. This sort of cosmetic treatment was nothing new to us. There were few royal visits, even in the UK, that weren’t preceded by a hasty coat of paint.

  Every day was hot and steamy in Jakarta, but the day the Princess visited the Sitanala leprosy hospital was particularly oppressive. Temperatures had topped 30ºC, and with 90 percent humidity, the air was dripping.

  Despite the heat, the hospital felt bright and at least reasonably airy, in part because there were windows stretching the full length of the ward. Well, at least there were spaces where windows would have been. As it was they were glassless, giving the press gathered outside an unrestricted view of the Princess at work, and the opportunity to stick their lenses through the openings in a gesture which, in any other circumstance, might have felt intrusive.

  The photographers didn’t appear to bother the patients, and they certainly didn’t deter Her Royal Highness. The Princess of 1989 was a very different woman from the gauche 19-year-old to whom Charles had proposed. Now in her late 20s, and a capable and clearly devoted mother to two young sons, she’d grown significantly in stature and confidence. She’d carved out for herself a role as a dedicated charity supporter and become, arguably, the first member of the Royal Family to really connect with the people.

  It was a role that would come to define her – warm where Charles was reticent, hands-on where he was perceived to be mostly hands-off. Doing away with the traditional codes of behavior, Diana was seen to be a breath of fresh air in what had begun to be viewed as a somewhat stuffy institution.

  Most of this perception was inaccurate and based on speculation rather than fact. The speculation grew out of an understanding that there were certain fixed rules about how we mere mortals could and should behave around the Royal Family. I began covering the royals as a reporter in 1977, at the time of the Queen’s silver jubilee. One of the first things I learned was that, contrary to popular opinion, no such obligatory rules actually existed.

  Not as any sort of law, anyway. Mostly they were made up by courtiers over the centuries, and retained for whatever reason. Regardless, what may have befitted the social mores of the 18th or 19th
centuries wasn’t necessarily right for modern times. Bowing or curtseying when in the presence of a member of the Royal Family? Not necessary. Not unless one chooses to.

  Don’t address the Queen until she addresses you? On the contrary. In fact, that misconception is possibly responsible for Her Majesty being lampooned from time to time for asking seemingly bland questions like ‘where do you come from?’ or ‘have you been waiting long?’ But what else is she to do? When faced with silence someone has to break the ice, after all. The Queen knows full well from experience that if she starts a conversation, people won’t feel so intimidated around her.

  The only obligatory rule is that, in the first instance, one is to address the Queen as ‘Your Majesty’. Thereafter it is permissible to call her ‘Ma’am’ (rhyming with jam). Other members of the Royal Family – male and female – are firstly referred to as ‘Your Royal Highness’ and thereafter as Sir or Ma’am, as well.

  Nothing officially changed when Lady Diana Spencer became the Princess of Wales, but there was a sense with the populous that she did things differently – that she was connected to the regular folk in a way unlike those born royal. Whether there was any truth to that is difficult to say. I’m tempted to suggest that it was as much about her youth and beauty as anything, but there was no doubt that she had a way of connecting that felt fresh, and unquestionably groundbreaking for the period.

  Both as a mother and an official member of the Royal Family, Diana had seen and experienced more than most young women her age. Whatever the Waleses marital situation was behind closed doors, in public she was a consummate professional, working hard at the complex job life had landed her. Taking on the challenges of touring seemed second nature to her, which I was now witnessing first hand.

  If AIDS patients were seen as modern-day lepers, then here in Indonesia were the real thing. Anyone not medically minded could have been forgiven for accepting the age-old folklore about the risk of getting too close to them physically. As ever, Diana strode onto the ward without a second thought. She would sit among the patients, shaking hands and holding stumps where hands had once been.

  She was always keen to get close to those she was visiting, often chatting to people at length with genuine interest. It was a gesture which greatly pleased both the Indonesian officials present, as well as The Leprosy Mission back in the UK – a charity for which the Princess subsequently became patron.

  As was the case with Diana’s visit to AIDS patients at Middlesex Hospital three years prior, pictures conveyed a message more powerfully than words ever could.

  CHAPTER 6

  An Iron Curtain Call

  May 1990

  The spring of 1990 saw another royal first, as the Prince and Princess of Wales made their way east for the first official royal visit to Hungary. A former Warsaw Pact country, Hungary was undergoing a time of great political change. The first democratic elections had been held just a month prior. It would be a very different place to that which the Duke of Edinburgh had visited in 1978 and 1984, to compete in the World Carriage Driving Championships.

  I had been to a number of countries on the European continent, but never to a communist – or even former communist – country. I knew it would be a fascinating glimpse into a part of the world that had previously been a mystery to the west. It was also another opportunity for the Princess to demonstrate what a positive asset she had become to ‘the firm’.

  President-elect Árpád Göncz and his visibly nervous wife Maria met Charles and Diana upon their arrival in Budapest. As the Prince inspected the honour guard alongside the President, I noted that the Princess had also sensed Mrs Göncz unease. From my position next to the press pen I watched as Diana, in an unprecedented move for a member of the Royal Family, took Mrs Göncz’s hand, and continued to hold it as the two women walked down the red carpet.

  She was without question becoming a star.

  *

  My own ambitions for stardom began early. I had caught the acting bug at prep school where, due to my diminutive stature and my slightly ‘pretty boy’ looks, I was regularly cast as a girl in our various school productions. I didn’t object to this. All I wanted was to be on the stage, and it was a pull that was never to leave me.

  Rhodesia, in that respect, had been kind to me. Yes, I had to toil at my apprenticeship and national service, but I began doing amateur dramatics when my schedule allowed. By the time I was a fully qualified electrician, I had already decided to discard my tools, and travel to Johannesburg to seek fame and fortune.

  Johannesburg turned out to be rather different from my expectations. As I knew no-one, apart from a great-aunt and great-uncle who kindly agreed to put me up for a few days on a settee in their dining room, I needed to hit the ground running. I had to find a place to call home, and more importantly, find a way to earn a living.

  Through the grapevine I had heard of a place called the Alba Hotel, and made it my first port of call. It was located in Braamfontein, a central suburb of Johannesburg that attracted budding thespians. Anyone who worked in theatre seemed to gravitate towards the area, and I decided I could do worse than make it my plan as well. Luckily I managed to find work quickly. It may have been for very little money and absolutely no fame, but it was a step on the ladder, and I was happy to have made the first rung. I worked throughout the country, taking on various roles. I assistant-stage-managed Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard for the Performing Arts Council Transvaal. I toured, performing onstage, in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. I played the lead in Anne Nichols’s 1920s play Abie’s Irish Rose and I worked behind the scenes stage-directing The Adam Leslie Revue, which started with a six-month run in Johannesburg before going on tour to Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Bloemfointein and Peitersburg in South Africa. The show played in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, closing in Johannesburg after a three-month run.

  Looking back, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but I was having the time of my life. I was in my element, and more importantly, continuously employed for two and a half years in what has always been a precarious industry.

  By 1965, however, I had a new plan – to return to the UK. For some reason I had been increasingly feeling the tug of home. I headed back, keen to make my contribution to the swinging 60s, which were by now in full swing.

  Again I fell on my feet, landing work reasonably quickly, booking a job with the Unicorn Theatre for Children, whose mission it was to inspire children by performing in schools around the country. If one is of a certain age, he might even have seen me. It wasn’t exactly rock’n’roll, but it was always inventive, and a lot of fun. It involved travel, camaraderie and doing what I loved most – donning a costume and performing before an audience.

  I was also getting paid adequately, if not handsomely, for my work. The only downside was the range of Equity-recommended digs available to us. Equity is the actors’ union in the UK, and at that time it was very helpful in recommending housing in the provinces. I can only assume that the people who compiled the list had never actually stayed in any of their recommendations as the accommodation left much to be desired.

  In Kings Lynn, our temporary abode comprised the only habitable house in an entire square. Having taken some hits during the war, it was shored up on either side and surrounded by rubble. There was no bathroom and the lavatory was an outhouse in the garden.

  ‘There’ll be a jug of water put outside your doors every morning,’ the landlady informed us, ‘for washing.’ Lest we thought we should drink it.

  She also warned us that she locked up the house at ten each night. ‘What do I do if I want to go to the loo after ten?’ I asked politely.

  ‘Your problem,’ she replied.

  No, your problem, I thought, making a decision then and there that, if necessary, I would simply use the window.

  Having lived in southern Africa for so long, I was used to taking daily showers, and I was therefore bemused by the British approach to personal hygiene in the 1960s. Inaccessible lav
atories, jugs of freezing water in which to wash. Compared to the way of life I had been used to, Britain felt like a step back in time. In Southend, another landlady thought the notion of bathing daily was a tremendous indulgence, and duly charged sixpence for the privilege. Each time I produced my money, on a daily basis, she’d glare as if I was committing a heinous moral crime. Whether she was worried I’d wear out her pristine bathroom or cause the electricity meter to explode from unexpected over-use I don’t know, but despite much disgruntled huffing, I got my daily bath.

  Towards the end of the tour, the attraction of Equity’s recommended B&Bs, was beginning to wear thin, so much so that by the time we got to Ludlow in Shropshire, I went wild. Although our salaries were modest in the extreme, I eschewed the local digs for the comparative luxury of the local inn.

  It was heaven. Not least because I was joined in going AWOL by one of my fellow cast members – a girl I had fancied for quite some time. I don’t know if it was my charm or the tantalizing thought of staying in a place with running hot water that tempted her, but it was the best night of the entire tour.

  Irritating as they were, it wasn’t the inconveniences that propelled me back to the African continent; it was the lack of sufficient work. Swinging as it was, there simply weren’t enough jobs in London for all of the aspiring actors chasing them. I’d had enough. I was back on a plane to Rhodesia in 1968, heading for the family home in Bulawayo. Despite the constant apprehension over being called up for military service, I thought I would be able to get more of the kind of work I was so keen to do.

  Before leaving for Johannesburg in the early 1960s, I had guested regularly on a twice-weekly television entertainment programme. The medium was in its infancy then, and now it was burgeoning. With theatre work drying up, I decided to try and get in on the action.

  Ironically, it was in radio that I quickly found love. It, too, was a growing medium in that part of the world, and I soon managed to land regular work. By the early 1970s I’d contributed to every home-produced news programme in Rhodesia, working as a freelancer for the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation (RBC).