Diana by Andrew Morton

Author:Andrew Morton [Morton, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782431053
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books

During their marriage Diana found it embarrassing that when she and the Prince of Wales went away he took more luggage than she did: ‘I am always appalled that Prince Charles takes twenty-two pieces of hand luggage with him. That’s before the other stuff. I have four or five.’ After her separation she wore it as a badge of honour that her administrative staff numbered just four while, as Patrick Jephson noted, the Prince employed thirty-five people. (Now there are eighty-five, including nine gardeners, four valets, three butlers, four chefs and two drivers.) In this climate of extravagance, laxity and excess, it was perhaps inevitable that it would rub off on his staff. As early as July 1991 Diana was sent a confidential report by the Waleses’ then deputy private secretary, Peter Westmacott, now Sir Peter and Ambassador to Turkey, about staff using the Prince’s name or St James’s Palace stationery to gain advantage. During his conversations with the Princess the name of Michael Fawcett, the Prince’s valet, was frequently mentioned. Indeed, when Diana raised the topic with her husband she later remarked to James Colthurst that it was one of the first times Prince Charles had ever taken her seriously.

Diana initially found Fawcett, a self-styled Mr Fix-it, convivial and amusing company, who would helpfully use his contacts – and discount – at Turnbull and Asser and other tailors to obtain shirts, ties and other items of menswear that she could give as presents to friends and members of staff. Over time, however, his role as the Prince’s gatekeeper, monitoring those who gained access to Charles – and that included the Princess – began to rankle. ‘Oh, we will see what the Prince has to say about that’ would be his stock reply to those who questioned him, a comment that displayed his proximity to the heir.

Fawcett had worked hard to reach such an exalted position. Like Burrell, he began life as a junior footman below stairs at Buckingham Palace, and he had battled his way to the Prince’s side by force of personality and imagination, creating for himself a vivid past that did not bear too close scrutiny. He told stories about his father losing millions on the Canadian stock market and of his mother being a minor member of the aristocracy.

A single incident captures well his blend of camp joviality, avuncular condescension and underlying aggression. When introduced by Ken Wharfe to a new Scotland Yard recruit, he looked the young man up and down, put a genial paw on the sleeve of the recruit’s rather modest acrylic sweater and said, ‘Don’t rub it, dear – you’ll go up in smoke.’

In many respects, Fawcett, a theatrical, court-jester character with an unfortunate bullying manner, was in the mould of Charles’s most famous valet, Stephen Barry, who worked for the Prince until 1981. Sociable, funny and frequently outrageous, Barry, who died of AIDS in 1986, was the only valet in memory to accompany the Prince on a royal walkabout, often gathering bouquets for his royal master.

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