MEETING WHEN PRINCE LEAPT ON HER FOR KISS
Aide blast at Palace over spin smears’
the couple’s engagement in 1981, when asked if they are in love.
Diana says: “The most extraordinary thing is we had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement. And this ridiculous ITN man said, ‘Are you in love?’
“I thought, what a thick question. So I said, ‘Yes, of course we are’, and Charles turned round and said, ‘ Whatever love means’. And that threw me completely. I thought, what a strange answer. It traumatised me.”
Rejected
At times in the tapes she looks relaxed and happy, at other points withdrawn, shy and sad. Opening up about her battle with bulimia, Diana’s sparkle fades. She describes how she felt shut out by the Royal family.
“Everybody knew about the bulimia in the family and they all blamed the failure of the marriage on the bulimia, and that’s taken some time to get them to think differently.
“I said I was rejected, I didn’t think I was good enough for this family so I took it out on myself. I could have gone to alcohol, which would have been obvious; I could have been anorexic, which could have been even more obvious.
“I decided to do a more discreet thing, which ultimately wasn’t discreet. I chose to hurt myself instead of hurting all of you.”
Viewers will see the sadness in Diana’s eyes as she speaks about Barry, her royal protection officer.
He died a motorbike crash in 1987, after being moved from his duties. The princess believed he had been “bumped off”. While never using Barry’s name, the princess speaks fondly of him in the tapes.
“When I was 24 or 25, I fell deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment. It was all found out and he was chucked out and then he was killed. That was the biggest blow of my life, I must say. I don’t find it easy to discuss,” she says.
Denying their relationship was ever sexual, saying Barry was more of a father figure, she goes on: “I was THE Palace orchestrated a campaign to discredit Diana and promote Camilla to Queen, a former key aide has claimed.
Patrick Jephson, the princess’ private secretary, attacked the “spin” surrounding Camilla, comparing it to Diana’s “authenticity”.
Speaking at a screening of Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, he said the programme raised the question about what kind of monarchy we want.
He said: “You’re probably aware of a sustained Clarence House campaign to promote Camilla’s suitability to be Queen.
“If there is popularity it’s the result of a systematic campaign involving the finest PR people money can buy. And like a lot of unscrupulous PR campaigners, they make their client look good by making the opposition look bad.
“This popularity has been built by trying to portray Diana as inadequate, as unsuitable, as unworthy.
“People tend to see through spin eventually. Diana’s authenticity is the reason we’re still talking about her.”
Defiance
Jephson, who worked for the princess for six years until 1996, praised her strength of character. He said: “What was underestimated then and now is Diana’sDiana strength as a person. She had a back backbone of steel and if you pushed h her into a corner, made her feel she was unjustly treated, there was a defiance in her. Sometim Sometimes reckless – as her private secretary it caused me a f few problems – but it wasn’t m manufactured, nicely package packaged and homogenised. It was real. “One issue raised by this film is what sort of monarc monarchy we want. A monarc monarchy pushed by spin do doctors or what we ha had with Diana.” Ken Wharfe, Diana’s prote protection officer, agre agreed: “I think the Pala Palace were good at mak making available the PR machine for Cam Camilla in the 90s. “I remember be being at St Ja James’s Palace and pe people spreading the w word to take Cam Camilla in. I recall the d difficult times Dian Diana had, when she wou would say there were three people in that m marriage.”