CAMILLA: I WAS SCARED TO LEAVE MY HOUSE AND FACE PUBLIC
Duchess feared wedding backlash
THE Duchess of Cornwall has revealed she was afraid to leave her home and face the public after rekindling her romance with Prince Charles.
Twelve years after their royal wedding, Camilla Parker Bowles said she passed the time reading and learning to paint as she was fearful of strangers’ hostility and press hounding for a year.
She said: “I couldn’t really go anywhere. But the children came and went as normal, they just got on with it, and so did friends.
“It was a deeply unpleasant time. I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it.”
The duchess, 69, who was a much-hated public figure before charming the nation in recent years, also said she doesn’t think she is tough, but she admits she is a strong character.
She said: “You have to be but I think it also comes from my upbringing. We were brought up in a very happy family and I can’t whinge about my childhood because it was idyllic.”
In a candid interview, Camilla revealed she takes each day as it comes and doesn’t think about any possible accession to the throne. And she joked that if ever she became too uppity her friends would simply tell her: “Pull yourself together! Don’t be so b****y grand.”
At home she relaxes by spending time in her own house, Ray Mill in Wiltshire, where she scrambles eggs on her Aga cooker, and entertains her five grandchildren.
She said: “Sometimes you get up in the morning and think you can’t do it, and you just have to.
“The minute you stop it’s like a balloon, you run out of puff – you sort of collapse in a heap. “I think you live on adrenaline. “If you are a positive person, you can do so much more. People are either glass-halfempty or glass-half-full. I always think hopefully. You just have to get on with it. Being British.”
The duchess also said she uses her sense of humour when things go wrong, saying: “You’ve got to laugh through most things.”
The duchess is Britain’s second most senior female Royal.