How Camilla brought Fergie in from the COLD

She’s back on the court circular – thanks to a woman who knows what it’s like to be a royal pariah

Help sometimes comes from the most unexpected quarters. And none, royal watchers would agree, is quite so unlikely as the benefactor quietly engineering the social rehabilitation of the Duchess of York.

It has been more than 20 years since the former Sarah Ferguson fell so spectacularly from grace following the cringeworthy scandal in which she was photographed having her toes sucked by financial adviser John Bryan in 1992, while still married to the Duke of York.

Though the divorce that followed, in May 1996, was civilised to a degree — she has remained on extremely good terms with her former husband, prince Andrew — her financial clout and social standing were severely diminished with the loss of royal trappings.

But Fergie, now 56, is nothing if not redoubtable.

Her announcement earlier this month that she is to carve out a new life for herself in Switzerland is just the latest in a long line of reinventions.

She’s spent the past two decadess trying, in her characteristically haphazard fashion, not only to create a new life and rectify her finances, but to secure herself a dignified place back within royal circles.

And with her trademark chutzpah, Fergie could be on the verge of achieving her dream.

This week, she was included in the Court Circular. She featured in the list of royal engagements because she attended an event last month as the official representative of prince Andrew.

The last time Fergie is believed to have been included in the Court Circular, which is approved personally by the Queen, was when she attended princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. AND it seems that her return to the royal fold is being aided by someone else who once knew the chill afforded to a royal outsider, namely Camilla.

The surprising friendship between the two — both women scorned at various points in their lives — appears to have grown in recent years following the sudden death in 2014 of the Duchess of Cornwall’s beloved younger brother, Mark Shand.

The charismatic adventurer, who died aged 62 when he fell and hit his head on a pavement in new York, was best known for his wildlife charity The elephant Family, of which Fergie was a patron.

According to a source, ‘Camilla adored her brother and so is instinctively fond and slightly misty- eyed about anyone who helped him out, as Fergie did as patron and long- standing supporter of the charity.’

When Charles and Camilla became Royal presidents of the charity in 2014 following Shand’s death, Fergie was conspicuously dropped from the guest list of its glitzy parties.

It is believed this was to please Charles, but Camilla has now personally ensured that she has been reinstated.

The source says: ‘ Camilla is a peacemaker by nature — look how she managed to get the Queen, William and Harry on side after the most inauspicious of beginnings. She’s also befriended Kate. Having been vilified herself for so long, she has much sympathy for Sarah.

‘In spite of the tensions between Charles and the Duke, she rather likes Andrew. She also likes their girls and she doesn’t approve of holding grudges.’

In return, Fergie has said ‘I love her’ about Camilla because she has ‘always been so nice to me’. She has known her for many years as her late mother, Susan, was friends with the then Mrs parker Bowles.

Indeed, over the past couple of years, there have been other signs that Fergie’s royal rehabilitation was under way.

A couple of summers ago, she was invited by the Queen to Balmoral, her first visit to the house since the nineties.

She has also attended various charity events in royal palaces, and in autumn 2014, the Queen even gave her permission to host one herself, for Children in Crisis, at Windsor Castle.

last summer, for the first time in years, she was invited to accompany prince Andrew to the Royal enclosure at Ascot. There, she curtseyed to the Queen, who waved cheerfully at them both, though, apparently, prince philip looked horrified when he saw his son’s former wife.

It is philip, along with Charles, who is the key obstacle to Fergie resuming her life — albeit in more reduced circumstances as an exwife — within the Royal Family.

Sources say philip has not spoken to her since the publication of the toe- sucking photographs while she was staying at Balmoral. And while the Queen is said to be more forgiving, philip will not budge.

Charles, too, became more fixed in his disapproval of his wayward former sister- in- law after the tabloid cash-for-access scandal in 2010, in which Fergie appeared to offer an undercover reporter an introduction to prince Andrew in return for £500,000.

‘Fergie is older and wiser, but nothing will sway philip, and the tension that exists between Charles and Andrew remains,’ says a royal source.

‘Charles still lays the blame for a series of scandals at Fergie’s door. He’s reduced to handwringing when he hears her name.’ But if anything can help thaw Charles’s froideur, it’s Fergie’s new alpine base.

A source said: ‘The Royals are much more well disposed towards her now she isn’t living at Royal lodge with Andrew. They never approved of such an unorthodox arrangement; they wanted clarity.’

For her part, Fergie claims it is the wine and cheese that have drawn her to the Alps. But as another source says: ‘She is reinventing herself as a polished, sophisticated euro-aristo type who lives in the mountains.’ THIS week it emerged that she has requested Swiss residency and wants to settle properly in Chalet Helora, the luxury property in exclusive Verbier which she and Andrew bought last August for £13 million.

They have a joint mortgage, which Andrew is believed to pay, in addition to providing Fergie with a clothing allowance.

Fergie has also re-invented herself physically, having lost 4st. She credits her weight loss to a Fusion Xcelerator juicer, which can be bought through her Duchess Discoveries website for $99.99 (£68).

Said the source: ‘She used that juicer for a year and was convinced it had helped her lose weight before she agreed to promote it. These things are selling very well in the U.S. and she has been approached by lots of other companies to work with them.’

eyebrows were raised again when she appeared on the QVC shopping channel to promote a brand of hair tongs. These, too, have been a success.

She is also said to be in advanced discussions on a significant deal concerning a range of products, from homeware to food, which includes a tastefully packaged tea brand, Duchess Blends.

‘The teas are great and look beautiful,’ says a source, who has tried them. ‘There is mint humbug, strawberries and cream, chocolate. She found these teas helped her lose weight.’

Some of them are designed to act as substitutes for pudding.

‘She has met with the managing director of Fortnum & Mason, who have a royal warrant. And funnily enough, her teas look set to take on prince Charles’s Duchy Original organic range.’

Fergie’s huge variety of entrepreneurial activity also includes publishing and film interests.

‘She is working on children’s books including Fergie’s Farm, based on her childhood in rural Hampshire, and the licensing

interests of Budgie the Helicopter and Little red.’

In addition to the film The Young victoria, starring emily Blunt, for which she was a co-producer, she has conducted research for a forthcoming film about Prince Albert, the screenplay of which is being written by Julian Fellowes’s niece, Jessica.

one insider told me she is a tough negotiator and recently turned down one film company in the u.S. because they wouldn’t give her ‘a big enough slice of the pie’.

And she is not lost for company either. Though she lives alone in verbier, a frequent visitor is Manuel Fernandez, a 47-year- old former soldier turned entrepreneur.

‘He visits the chalet when Andrew isn’t there. The staff know him and he converses with them in fluent French because he speaks three languages. He’s a competent skier and gets on well with Beatrice, though eugenie is more wary.

‘He is a force for good in her life: he is polite, courteous and affectionate. She stops showing off when she’s with him. He won’t embarrass her or the girls. Andrew has met him and seems to approve.’

Whether the two are anything more than close friends is unknown. And with so much of her business empire inextricably linked to the title ‘ Duchess’, it seems highly unlikely that Fergie would downgrade herself to a mere ‘Mrs’ with a second marriage.

Funnily enough, two of her powerful, door-opening friends have verbier connections: tycoon Sir richard Branson and Fergie’s former boyfriend, businessman Paddy McNally.

The 77-year-old McNally — who is worth north of half- a- billion pounds, a fortune he made from Formula 1 hospitality — is appar- ently ‘ uber generous, and would never shut the door on her’.

of course, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single royal in possession of a ski chalet will find her general popularity enhanced.

And Camilla is by no means the only royal who is fond of her. Another peacemaker is Prince Harry, who has been to stay at Chalet Helora with his cousins, Beatrice and eugenie, to whom he is very close.

Says a verbier source: ‘Harry gets on with Fergie really well. He thinks she’s hilarious, and they have a mutual adoration society. He loves being part of her redsetter mob [a royal Family nickname for her] and they ski together, then gas over mulled wine.’ AND to her credit, apart from her charity work and determination to support herself, she can take pride in her two daughters. ‘ Beatrice and eugenie are considered among the best-mannered young royals,’ says a source. ‘So her parenting skills must count for something.’

And despite the many mistakes she has made during her colourful life, she remains fiercely protective of the royal Family.

‘She may be short on memory concerning her less- than- royal antics, but she is long on loyalty and staunch in defending her former husband and daughters’ status at all costs,’ says a source.

Fergie adores the Queen, and despite the dramas, the Queen is said to have a soft spot for her.

Charles and Philip may remain the toughest nuts to crack, but with her independent life — and her newfound friendship with Camilla — it seems Fergie may finally have earned the respect she has longed for.