BY ROYAL INVITATION Camilla turns 70
WRITER JULIET RIEDEN SPENT TWO WEEKS WITH CAMILLA, DUCHESS OF CORNWALL AND TALKED TO THOSE CLOSE TO HER
On July 17, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall turns 70 and she and the Prince of Wales will celebrate with a party at Clarence House, their home in the heart of London, with supporters and representatives from the Duchess’ charities.
Most likely the couple will also have a separate celebration on another date with the Duchess’ children, Tom (42) and Laura (39), their spouses and her grandkids. For, away from the tiaras, the palaces and the endless hand-shaking, which trust me is interminable, Camilla is pleasingly down-to-earth.
She loves rural life and her family is hugely important to her – she talked about them spontaneously at least once a day, mostly to strangers, during our two weeks together. She couldn’t help herself.
The Duchess also adores her horses (she privately owns race horses) and dogs (Camilla has two Jack Russell terriers called Beth and Bluebell, who were both rescue puppies) and is even a member of the local Tetbury Women’s Institute. Her Royal Highness – as she became when she married Prince Charles 12 years ago – maintains a close friendship with her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles (77), the father of her children, and on our day out for Ladies’ Day at Cheltenham Races, the two met and were locked in conversation and laughter for some time.
“The amicable split from Andrew Parker Bowles speaks volumes,” says journalist Elsa McAlonan, who with her husband Murdoch MacLennan, the deputy chairman and former CEO of the Telegraph Media Group in the UK, knows Prince Charles (68) and Camilla personally, and attended the couple’s wedding. “Andrew and Camilla are still friends. There’s no bad blood and that will be hugely helpful with the children, obviously. It is very civilised,” explains Elsa.
She’s also convinced that the constant tabloid rumblings about discord between Camilla
and Princes William (35) and Harry (32) are pure fiction. “I don’t think there’s any hostility between the Duchess and William and Harry, although I know people would like to think so, but I just don’t think it exists. William and Harry are friends with the Duchess’ children Tom and Laura, and have been for a long time. I’ve never seen any animosity between them.”
Charles and Camilla are known to hold low-key dinner parties at Highgrove, the Prince’s house in the heart of England’s Gloucestershire countryside, and Clarence House, sharing good food, wine and conversation with their friends.
“She’s unpretentious, fun, unfussy and funny,” Kathy Lette tells me. The Australian novelist, who lives most of the year in London, has become a close friend of Camilla’s and when they spied each other at the Women of the World Festival launch I attended with the Duchess at Buckingham
Palace, it was with an immediate hug and a kiss, despite the grandeur of the occasion.
“The first time
I met her was through a mutual
‘I’m sure the British public has accepted her. I think Prince Charles would like her to be Queen’
friend some years before she married Prince Charles. We were chatting about the imminent pressures of being in the media spotlight,” says Kathy (58). “’You’ll need your girlfriends around you more than ever,’ I said. ’I’m just off to have lunch with them now,’ she twinkled. And I could just imagine them laughing.”
When Prince Charles and his wife want to spend time alone, they head to Birkhall, the unassuming home he loves in the grounds of Balmoral Castle, which used to belong to the Queen Mother. Here the couple can really be free, away from paparazzi lenses and they love to go on long walks through the Scottish highlands.
“They do love Scotland, being away from it all,” says
Elsa. “We’ve got a house up there and they always seem very comfortable and happy there.”
To her grandkids, Camilla is known as “GaGa”. She is devoted to them, darting off from official duties to buy little gifts whenever she’s on overseas tours – which increasingly is a lot. I first met the Duchess five years ago in advance of her inaugural trip to New Zealand and Australia. Since then, her daily workload has exploded, as I discovered when I was invited to spend two weeks with Camilla in advance of her 70th birthday.
As I write this, the Duchess has just returned home from three days in Canada for the realm’s 150th birthday celebrations, and it’s worth noting that last year she carried out 218 engagements and is currently president or
patron of more than 90 charities.
At an age when most of us are thinking about kicking back, Camilla is embarking on what is likely to be the biggest job of her life. As the Queen hands over more of her daily work to her family – the heavy lifting taken on by her heir Prince Charles – and the Duke of Edinburgh steps back from official duties, the pace is about to shift up a gear for Camilla, both by her husband’s side and in her own right as a key member of “The Firm”.
Dame Julia Cleverdon (67) has worked with Prince Charles for 30 years and first met the Duchess at Highgrove some years before the couple married. Since those early days, she has watched Camilla grow in confidence and stature, fuelled by her love for her husband.
“She’s all the things one would most want – she’s humble, she’s got no side to her and she does everything she possibly can to put people at their ease,” tells Julia. “She wasn’t born to this, so to that extent she’s a really nice person who wants to take an interest and is always encouraging and supportive. It is a pretty exhausting life. I mean, who knows how on earth the
Prince of Wales has the stamina he does, but he has sort of grown into it over the years.
But I think she’s amazing.
“He will be the best-prepared king we have ever had and the Duchess, having been with him for the last 12 years, has seen this as the pace has stepped up. We are immensely fortunate to have somebody who has, in a way, put the life she thought she was going to have on hold and faced this pretty extraordinary way of spending your time – in cluster groups, getting in and out cars, rushing off to see the next thing. It’s a very, very extraordinary way of life.”
Ruth Powys (39), the former partner of Camilla’s beloved late brother Mark Shand (who died unexpectedly in 2014), spends a lot of time working with the elephant charity she and Mark set up. Over the years, she has got to know Mark’s sister well and she says she’s exasperated when she hears negative gossip. “It’s funny when you go abroad to other countries,” says Ruth. “The concept of Diana and everything is still around. It’s almost like they’re 10 years behind England, whereas in England when it’s discussed socially or in a pub, if anyone says anything negative, it’s like ’Come on, grow up. How many marriages don’t work in terms of the first marriage?’ Of course, when you’re a little bit closer to it, it drives you mad some of the incredibly naive things people say. But I believe that England has recognised that it’s a relationship of obviously enormous strength and solidity, with the deepest love running through it.”
As we travel all over the
UK to engagements that range from military celebrations to a special initiative the Duchess has spearheaded for victims of domestic violence, the warmth of the reception she receives is palpable. When she was married, Clarence House stated that the title “Princess Consort” would be used when Prince Charles became King, rather than Queen Consort.
But many I talk to feel she should be Queen.
“I think she should be Queen, personally, because I think the Queen Mother was Queen and why should she not be,” says Elsa. “In every poll it’s not conclusive, it is getting closer, but not there yet. But I’m sure the British public has accepted her. I think Prince Charles would like her to be Queen. And if Kate is going to be Queen, then she should be also.”
Julia agrees. “I think she’s really earned the esteem in which she is now held. She’s not been in any way concerned to draw attention to herself. Her role is to support her husband. She’s not there for any reason other than we run a monarchy and therefore her role is in support of the monarchy.”
Of course, all this may well be a long way off and, in the meantime, the Duchess of Cornwall can celebrate her
70th safe in the knowledge that she is already an established part of the monarchy.