The Duchess: The Untold Story – the explosive biography, as seen in the Daily Mail. Penny Junor
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She’s also a terrible giggler. When you see that twinkle in her deep blue eyes, you know she’ll be up for anything. Equally, she’s the sort of woman whom you know has real depth underneath the froth and the laughter, and if you were in a jam you would want her with you because you know she would calmly cope.
She has compassion too, but she can be tough – some would say ruthless – when needs be. She is nobody’s fool and won’t be pushed around by anyone. That said, she is not ambitious, she’s not moody or temperamental – although the eyes can flash and she can get cross – and she’s finely attuned to other people and their needs, in a way that her husband is not. And perhaps most endearing of all is that her family is paramount. She put them through hell because of her relationship with the Prince and now she’s making amends.
Her sister, Annabel, eighteen months younger, is very different in character but probably her closest friend and confidante. They did everything together as children and although they have different friends, they speak on the phone three times a week as they always have done; they still holiday together and still see one another regularly. Likewise, her two children, Tom and Laura, who are both married with small children of their own, are all very close and very protective of one another. Camilla is particularly close to her daughter, Laura – and Laura is the only person she’s afraid of. She utterly dotes on her five grandchildren and sets aside most weekends for them, as well as taking regular holidays in Devon and Scotland. She has kept the house in the country that she had before she married the Prince and goes there as often as she can, and she is joined there by her family. She cooks, she gardens, she reads, she relaxes, preferring the normality of her old home to the formality of the Prince’s house half an hour away. Often the Prince quietly joins her. Normality is not something he has had much experience of in his life.
Spend two minutes with Camilla in the flesh and you will understand what Charles sees in her. But why he walked away from Diana and into her arms, why he risked everything, even the institution of monarchy, to have her in his life, is more complex.
The stammering George VI was unprepared and ill-equipped to be king when he was thrust into the role by his brother’s abdication in 1936. By good fortune he had a strong wife, Charles’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. Without her, Bertie, as he was known, could never have done the job. As it was, he died at the age of fifty-six, and she would claim it was the stress of the job that killed him. He was a good and popular king and left the monarchy in a healthy condition for his daughter, who was just twenty-five when he died. Intellectually, Charles will be the best prepared heir who has ever ascended the throne – he is cultured, well-informed, well-travelled, well-read, and he knows more about how people live and work in Britain than most politicians. He has spent the last forty years heavily involved in everything from architecture and inner city deprivation to interfaith dialogue, the rural economy and conservation. He’s not afraid to put his head above the parapet if he thinks he can be of use. But emotionally he is less robust. She will give him the strength and the confidence to do the job.
She has already transformed him, as everyone can plainly see. Before she came into his life in the dying days of his marriage, he was lonely, depressed and angst-ridden, under-appreciated for his tireless charity work, and widely despised for his infidelity. Today he is happy, laughing and fulfilled. That makes him a better prince, a better father and a much more productive and popular figure. And when the time comes, it will make him a confident, capable and I believe much-loved king. Without her, there might have been a very different outcome.
But more than that. To the surprise of everyone who knew her before she married the Prince of Wales, Camilla has turned into a formidable worker and a very serious advocate for women, unafraid to put her name to issues like rape, sexual violence and domestic abuse. She is also tackling the widespread problem of illiteracy and encouraging people of all ages to read and enjoy books – something she herself has done since childhood. The advantage of coming to the role later in life is that she has nothing to prove. She is a grandmother, she has been around the block, she is not jostling to make her mark in the world, to look thirty years younger, or to steal the limelight, so nobody feels threatened or intimidated by her. She is happy to be herself, and if she can make a difference here and there to people’s lives, so much the better. Her calmness, warmth, good humour and approachability – and her ability to be very tough when the occasion demands – are everything the nation could want in the uncertain years that will follow the death of such a popular and long-reigning Queen.
1
Thick early morning fog had slowly lifted and given way to a sunny but cold autumn morning in the English county of Dorset. The countryside was looking glorious, at its green and pleasant best, as I headed for the experimental new town of Poundbury; the leaves on the trees were the colour of rich orange marmalade. It was the perfect day to witness a rare event. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were to visit the town where Charles has implemented all his unorthodox ideas about urban planning. It’s not often that you see the four senior members of the British Royal Family on a public engagement together – and it’s almost unprecedented for the Prince’s parents to visit and thereby tacitly endorse one of his achievements.
Poundbury is undeniably an extraordinary achievement, one which has been in the making for nearly a quarter of a century. Charles was hoping to impress his parents, but after a lifetime of disappointment in that hope, he was not holding his breath. The Prince of Wales has been trying to win his parents’ approval his entire life, but he is not the son his father wanted – he is way too sensitive – and he has never felt he was good enough, never felt he came up to their expectations, never felt truly loved or appreciated. The Queen has many wonderful qualities and as a sovereign she has been peerless, but she is not emotionally demonstrative – and the Duke, for all his talents, is a bully. Charles grew up with everything he could want materially, but very few of his emotional needs were satisfied, and no amount of wealth and privilege can make up for the damage of that early emotional deprivation. The only person who made him feel good about himself, until Camilla came along, was his grandmother, the Queen Mother, who died in 2002 at the age of 101. And he was here today to officially open the central square that he has named after her.
Charles has put heart and soul into Poundbury. He has gone against accepted wisdom and practice, and for all the years of contempt and ridicule he has been proved right. The buildings in Queen Mother Square are designed for mixed use, all neoclassical in design – one bears a striking resemblance to Buckingham Palace – and most are named after the Queen Mother’s favourite racehorses. After a tour of some of the buildings, and some speeches, the Queen was to unveil a bronze statue of her mother that stands imposingly, three metres high, in the centre of the square.
I parked my car in a field, the designated car park for the day, and made my way on foot through long wet grass and stinging nettles to the centre of Poundbury, a five-minute walk away. I was two hours early but the square was already full of police and well-wishers, hundreds of them, a crowd that would swell to thousands. Since it was half-term, excitable children had joined parents and grandparents, all of them wrapped up against the cold. When the royal convoy finally arrived, the spectators were standing six deep and more behind crowd barriers, waving flags and taking photos on their mobile phones. This was a day that they would remember for many years to come. The family is not normally seen together other than at weddings and funerals, at Christmas and Easter, when they all go to church, or on ceremonial occasions, like Remembrance Day and Trooping the Colour on the Queen’s official birthday. With the Queen and the Duke now both in their nineties, there are no guarantees that these four will share an event again.
The centre had been cordoned off and security was tight – sniffer dogs would have been round earlier and there were no doubt snipers on the roofs – but everyone was good-natured and jovial. They usually are when royalty comes to the countryside. The Royal Family is in the feel-good business; it is important that security