Landmark for Heritage boss’s wife
WHILE it’s one thing to bellow orders at your wife in the privacy of your own home, it’s quite another to berate — or promote — her at work. But Prince Charles’s chum, English Heritage boss Dr Simon Thurley, need no longer worry about how colleagues perceive his working relationship with his wife, Dr Anna Keay.
She has given notice from her job looking after 420 English Heritage sites and is to take up a new post with a rival.
Bedales and Oxford-educated Anna started at English Heritage nine years ago. However, that was when Simon was still married to his first wife, Katherine, daughter of former Stock Exchange chairman Sir Nicholas Goodison.
Eyebrows were raised as Anna quickly moved up the hierarchy and now — at 38 and more than ten years Simon’s junior — she has landed the top job at the Landmark Trust, a charity that rescues buildings of historic interest.
Anna’s move is welcomed by many who believe it can’t have been easy for Simon to monitor his wife.
‘She knows her own mind and since she was the boss’s wife, it might be hard for others to voice criticism should they feel inclined to do so,’ says one English Heritage worker.
There was certainly criticism two years ago when Thurley allowed in cameras for a BBC documentary series. It was seen as a PR disaster after normally affable Simon came over as if the English Heritage properties were part of his personal fiefdom.
In one programme, he had to defend his wife over the restoration of Kenilworth Castle’s Elizabethan Garden in Warwickshire. The builders called it the project from hell.
‘I did not personally employ Anna and she doesn’t work directly for me,’ says Simon. ‘She answers to someone else. There is a subtle but important difference.’
Her new job, however, may mean domestic changes because the couple live in Norfolk with their three-year- old twins Maud and Arthur, and Anna’s new HQ will be in Maidenhead, Berks.
‘Fortunately, my job doesn’t mean I have to be in London. I go all over the country and can be pretty flexible,’ says Simon. HAVING flirted with local beauty queen Anastagia Pierre, 23, Prince Harry is unsurprisingly enthusiastic about his Diamond Jubilee visit to the Bahamas. The Prince penned a refreshingly unstuffy thank-you note to the islands’ governorgeneral Sir Arthur Foulkes, 83. He writes: ‘What a fantastic couple of days. I am truly sad to leave and can’t thank you enough . . . Thank you for being so much fun and making me smile for two full hours! I loved every second of my time with you. My grandmother, the Queen, would have loved it too. See you all soon, I hope.’