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

by Dickie Arbiter

  Later, he did publicly admit that he had got it wrong, claiming that some people might have thought him a fool for not joining her. ‘A wiser man,’ he reflected, ‘probably would have done so.’ But truth be told he was never going to change his mind however robustly we tried to make him. It would have been a sham, and I think he decided that whatever the repercussions, he was no longer prepared to play the game.

  If the media thought the debacle at the Taj Mahal would prove to be the scoop of the century, they hadn’t banked on the gift they were about to receive on the eve of Valentine’s Day. The royal party had been geographically reunited in the ancient city of Jaipur, the magnificent capital of Rajasthan, which had been painted pink to create a festive air in honour of a visit by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, in 1853.

  The Prince was asked to play in an exhibition polo match and, buoyed by the invitation after so much angst and negative press, he was visibly looking forward to it.

  The same could not be said for Diana. An exhibition match requires an official prize giving at its conclusion. It was understood that the Princess would present the prizes, and it was also assumed that win or lose, she would kiss her husband. The Princess, however, was in no mood to be an accessory to the day’s events.

  During a break for lunch, word came through that the Princess had no intention of attending the polo. The tour’s private secretary Peter Westmacott and I went to see her in an effort to persuade her of the wisdom of doing otherwise.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ she argued. ‘And I have no intention of doing so.’

  Her steely expression told us she wasn’t going to budge. This left Peter and me metaphorically rolling up our sleeves; we had a job on our hands – Diana simply had to attend the polo.

  We were a two-pronged offensive.

  ‘Ma’am, think how it’ll look,’ we began. ‘Think how it’ll seem to our hosts and the Indian people. Think how it’ll make you look, and how the press will respond. If you fail to show up, you’ll be playing right into their hands. Speculation will be rampant.’

  We did not receive the desired response. ‘You think I even care?’ she raged. ‘You really think I even care anymore? Because I don’t! I’m at the point where I don’t care what they think, much less what they write in the papers. I’m not going to present the prizes and that’s that!’

  But that couldn’t be that. Were she to skip the prize giving, she would not only be offending her Indian hosts but the Indian people as a whole. As we tried to coax her into changing her mind, we heard that tens of thousands of spectators were pouring into the grounds to watch the match.

  We were forced to step it up a notch. The Prince aside, there were two teams of players eagerly anticipating the opportunity to play for her, and who deserved the privilege of shaking her hand at the end of the match. This was the royal tour ethos.

  We changed tack again, restating how the snub to the Indian people would be perceived.

  Not to be forgotten, the next stop on the Princess’s itinerary was Mother Teresa’s Mission in Calcutta. The last thing Diana needed if she persisted in her refusal to go to the polo was to know that she had upset her gracious hosts.

  It was a game of one-upmanship, and I felt sorry for her. Was the presentation of these prizes really so important as to cause so much distress? Of course not. But we practiced the emotional blackmail anyway because in the clear light of day, making the right professional choice mattered to Diana…which is why she finally agreed to go.

  The venue for the match, the Rajasthan Polo Club, was an opulent, flamboyant setting. Smartly dressed in blue double-breasted blazers accessorized with silk cravats, officers of the 61st Cavalry mingled around the clubhouse in a place where it seemed that time had stood still. It was as though we had been transported back to the days of the Raj.

  Regimental grooms in jodhpurs, puttees and stiffened turbans emulating those of their officers added to the magnificence, and amidst the vibrancy was the Prince’s host, the titular Maharaja of Jaipur, or as he was affectionately known, ‘Bubbles Jaipur’.

  The Maharaja’s English nanny had bestowed the nickname upon him in 1931. She’d been so taken aback by the amount of champagne flowing at the celebration of his birth that she had coined the name Bubbles, which stuck with him until his death in 2011.

  The polo event was an important part of the tour, and to the delight of the media in attendance, it was quite a photogenic one as well. Security-wise it was a nightmare, with a crowd exceeding 30,000, but everything went according to plan without incident.

  The Prince scored three of his team’s four goals, sealing their victory, which seemed to please everyone present, bar one. As the crowd surged onto the pitch, my gaze moved to the royal enclosure, now sealed off with rope. It was impossible to hear anything over the din of the spectators as the teams lined up for the prize giving.

  Prince Charles’s expression said it all. His face was flushed with the glow of victory, a fine feat for someone who had only recently suffered a nasty fracture, and who was the first to admit to his relative lack of prowess at the sport of kings.

  In contrast, the Princess looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else. Perhaps it was Diana’s transparent body language that caused the Prince to commit the ultimate faux pas. Instead of leaning in for the requisite kiss after receiving his prize, he turned and walked away. Realising his mistake he hastily returned and, with an uncertain crowd looking on, moved to kiss his wife’s right cheek. Incensed, the Princess swiveled her head so that the kiss landed near her ear.

  The crowd, as well as those of us accompanying the royal couple, could only cringe. The Prince had clearly been intentionally humiliated, and we knew he’d be furious.

  More importantly from our point of view, the Princess had given the press a picture that said it all.

  When Ken Wharfe, the Princess’s protection officer, later asked Diana why she had behaved as she did, she replied, ‘I’m not about to pander to him! Why the bloody hell should I? If he wants to make a fool out of me with that woman, he deserves it. But I am not about to make a fool of myself so that all his friends can laugh at me.’

  I could understand her reasoning, but that was not how the Prince and his staff saw it.

  ‘She is nothing but a spoilt schoolgirl,’ one of his household told me. He went on to accuse her of calculated, childish petulance.

  I defended her position – the only one, it would seem, willing to do so – but my argument fell on deaf ears. The Prince’s aide simply shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Surely she could put on a show just once,’ he said, before turning his back.

  As I watched him skulk off, it occurred to me that that is what Diana had been doing for most of her adult life. I wondered if she was not due some time off for good behavior…time to just be herself.

  Whatever arguments and denials I might have made, the pictures published on Valentine’s Day spoke volumes.

  The royal couple parted company again soon after – the Prince off to Nepal and the Princess headed for a visit to the Mother Teresa Mission in Calcutta.

  Meanwhile, those of us in the press office were left to handle damage control.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Annus Horribilis Begins

  January 1992

  When it comes time to write the history of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, historians, royal commentators and armchair watchers alike will probably agree that 1992 was the worst year in the history of the modern British Monarchy. It even stands to eclipse the abdication crisis of 1936, in which the Queen’s uncle, Edward VIII, stepped down claiming memorably that he wasn’t prepared to become King, ‘without the help and support of the woman I love.’

  As usual, the year began with the Queen in residence at Sandringham, quietly marking the anniversary of her accession. The troubles started soon after, with Charles and Diana’s ill-fated trip to India. Behaving as they had, the sovereign’s immediate family members were directly responsib
le for a run of negative press aimed at tearing the Windsors to pieces. While the Monarch couldn’t be held personally accountable for the Waleses actions, anti-monarchists were quick to lay the blame squarely at her feet. Opinion polls at the year’s end didn’t quite indicate the demise of the Royal Family, but they did show that the institution of the Monarchy had suffered a significant blow.

  Where the Queen was concerned, it was business as usual. We in the press office anticipated another fairly routine year in which Her Majesty would undertake her constitutional and representational duties as head of state and – in her less formal role as Head of the Nation – continue to act as a focus of national identity and pride.

  But neither the Queen nor her staff lived in a bubble. By the time the Prince and Princess of Wales returned from India, public and press speculation about their marriage was in overdrive. Indeed with heavy newspaper coverage of the Waleses troubles, as well as speculation of Prince Andrew’s marriage to Sarah Ferguson and the divorce of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, the Royal Family seemed to have a monopoly on column inches.

  Predictably, Diana quickly redeemed herself in the eyes of the media. Though unable to meet Mother Teresa (who’d been detained in Rome after suffering a mild heart attack), she’d finished the India tour by singing with other nuns in the Mission chapel and visiting a home for abandoned children. Both events had moved the Princess – and even a few of the more cynical members of the media pack – to tears.

  She went on to visit a hospice, and with the distress she experienced there splashed across the world’s newspapers, a shift in perception immediately became evident. Reportedly cast aside by her husband and missing her sons, who were halfway across the world, one couldn’t help but sympathize with her circumstances. It was no wonder that she came across as rather fragile, and it was good for her to leave the country as soon as possible, if only to keep busy and escape the relentless speculation.

  She flew first to Rome to meet the convalescing Mother Teresa, and then in May she headed off for a 36-hour stay in Budapest.

  The purpose of the short trip was to raise the profile of the Peto Institute for Conductive Education, an organization with which Diana had links through one of her UK charities. Its mission is to help children suffering from neural disabilities such as cerebral palsy.

  Though brief, the visit still needed to be recced. Along with a protection officer, I flew to Budapest beforehand to make a dry run and check the accommodation – in this case the British Ambassador’s residence, where a reception was to be held. As patron of the English National Ballet, Diana would also attend the company’s gala performance at Budapest’s Opera House.

  On the morning prior to her arrival, I held my usual press briefing, going over the itinerary and detailing the logistics of time, travel and the various facilities that would be made available. As I spoke, it seemed as though the assembled journalists were much more preoccupied with another matter. A hand shot up before I’d even finished asking for questions.

  ‘This book…what do you know about it?’

  ‘What book?’ I responded, having no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘Andrew Morton’s kiss-and-tell about Charles and Diana’s marriage. Is there any truth to the rumour that she’s collaborating with him?’

  This was news to me…potentially explosive news. I knew Andrew Morton’s name; he was a well-known former tabloid journalist. Could it be true? Given the unusually large and enthusiastic press presence in the room, I couldn’t help but think that it was. They certainly weren’t there to hear about cerebral palsy.

  ‘I know nothing about it,’ I told them truthfully.

  ‘But what do you think? Apparently it’s going to be quite explicit.’

  Not willing to join in the speculation, I told them only that I would get back to them after I had spoken with the Princess.

  With a story as catastrophic as this stood to be, it was essential to be in full possession of the facts. We in the press office could not afford to be reactive. On the contrary, it was imperative that we retained some control in the handling of an issue that would no doubt dominate the headlines.

  Had Diana actually co-operated with Morton? Would she really have done such a thing? I needed to find out for myself.

  During the visit to the Peto Institute, I managed to steal a private moment with the Princess away from the assembled crowd. I told her about the reporters’ questions, emphasizing what seemed to be the widely held belief that she had co-operated with Andrew Morton during the writing of the book.

  ‘What shall I tell them, Ma’am?’

  At first she seemed dismayed. Then her expression changed to one of defiance. She fixed me with a stern glare.

  ‘What book? Dickie, I am not collaborating on any book. I know as much about it as they do,’ she said, indicating the awaiting press with a nod.

  ‘Okay, Ma’am,’ I replied. ‘Then that’s what I shall tell them.’

  ‘Good!’

  My gut feeling was that she was being economical with the truth, but I wasn’t about to accuse her of lying. Instead I did as promised and relayed to the media our conversation, offering not a hint of my own thoughts on the matter.

  I’m quite sure no-one believed me.

  As I expected, Diana continued the charade for months as the year’s schedule of events and trips continued as planned. No sooner would she return to London from a trip than she was off again. En route to Diana’s solo visit to Egypt, the Queen’s Flight BAe 146 actually made a stop to drop off her husband in Turkey, where he was going on a holiday without the Princess. Charles’s act was emblematic of the level of discord within the Waleses marriage.

  The couple were later reunited on May 21st, as the Princess was scheduled to accompany Charles at the opening of the British Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Seville. It was painfully obvious that the couple didn’t want to be in each other’s company. At every photo opportunity they went to such extreme lengths as to stand apart and cast their gazes outward – anything to avoid eye contact.

  It was painful to witness, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one watching the relationship unravel who wished that it could just be done with.

  Soon it would all come to a head anyway. It was upon their return from Seville that the much-anticipated bombshell finally detonated…when Andrew Morton’s forthcoming book, Diana: Her True Story, was serialized in The Sunday Times.

  The Princess had succeeded brilliantly in covering up the fact that she had indeed collaborated with Morton. She had even kept the secret from some who were prepared to speak on her behalf, including her brother-in-law, Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary at the time.

  Also left in the dark was Lord McGregor, then chairman of the Press Complaints Commission who, following the initial serialization in the paper, publically rushed to her defence, lambasting the The Sunday Times for, ‘dabbling their fingers in the stuff of other people’s souls.’

  We received word of the serialization on Saturday, the eve of its publication. Knowing that The Sunday Times had a two week exclusive, we were sure that the paper would milk the story for all it was worth. Late that night, I made a trip from Windsor to London’s Charing Cross Station in order to pick up first copies, hot off the presses.

  I braced myself for what I was about to read.

  The next morning the first call I received was not from a member of the press, but from the Princess herself. I assumed that she, too, had sent out the night before for a first edition, and though she didn’t say so, I suspected that she’d passed a sleepless night reading and re-reading the extract.

  ‘What do I do, Dickie?’ There was an edge of panic in her voice. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Ma’am,’ I replied, curtly. ‘You’ve let the cat out of the bag. It’s done.’

  ‘Yes, but what should I do?’ she repeated.

  ‘All you can do, Ma’am, is batten down the hatches. Don’t talk to anyone…
and I mean anyone. And while you’re at it,’ I added, hoping to lighten the moment, ‘why don’t you pour yourself a large scotch and get drunk?’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, distracted. ‘I might just have to do that. I’ll call you later, okay?’

  I didn’t hear from her again that day.

  In fact I took no more than a dozen calls, mostly from reporters obligated to ask for a response from the Palace and knowing full well all they would receive was ‘if you’ve read the serialization, you must draw your own conclusion.’ Besides, they had much more interesting meat to pull apart – the contents of Diana: Her True Story.

  The book became a runaway bestseller, and the Princess could do nothing but keep her head down. She continued to maintain the line that she had had nothing to do with the writing of it. I had my doubts, but it was entirely her prerogative.

  As the year went on, there was no respite from the relentlessly salacious, and often negative, press directed towards the Royal Family. In August, pictures emerged of financial advisor John Bryan sucking the toes of a topless Duchess of York while the two were on holiday in the south of France. Taken at a private villa, the pictures indicated a blatant invasion of privacy.

  Sarah happened to be at Balmoral with the rest of the Royal Family at the time that the photos were splashed across the British Sunday tabloids. The publication did not go down well. The Queen’s private secretary suggested that the Duchess might feel better if she left the rest of the family and returned immediately to London. Never one for giving much credence to the suggestions of private secretaries, on this occasion, Sarah heeded the advice.

  It was The Mirror that had initially broken the story, making the most of their scoop by publishing ten pages of scandalous pictures to accompany the copy. This being tabloid fodder, The Sun would not be outdone. It responded by dredging up the transcript of a two-year-old phone conversation between Diana and her longtime friend, James Gilbey. Dubbed ‘Squidgygate’ by the red top paper that published it, the conversation actually read rather blandly. But with the eternal tabloid war suddenly heating up, a little detail like that was not going to keep the story out of print.