How tragic that Thomas Markle may never see the baby who will bring Meghan and Doria even closer
After his string of gaffes and sour comments . . .
BEHIND the heart-warming announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expecting their first child, there lies an altogether less straightforward sub-plot. It is the story of two very different maternal grandparents.
Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, will be filled with joy and excitement as she anticipates the spring arrival of her first grandchild, and will expect to play a very active role in raising the child. Indeed, though she has reportedly decided against moving permanently from Los Angeles to London – at least for the time being – sources say she plans to make regular transatlantic trips to visit her new family.
Contrast Miss Ragland’s jubilation with the emotions of Meghan’s 74-year-old father, Thomas, as he ponders the momentous news at his lonely apartment in the Mexican resort of Rosarito Beach.
Though he already has five grandchildren by his son, Thomas Junior, and daughter, Samantha Grant – the product of his first marriage – Mr Markle ought to be feeling similarly thrilled, for Meghan was always the apple of his eye, and his only child with Doria.
Yet thanks to his unedifying words and behaviour towards her and Prince Harry these past few months, he has alienated himself from them so completely that, according to insiders, Meghan didn’t even deign to call him to tell him she was to become a mother.
Instead, it was left to Doria to inform him of the pregnancy. He has now pronounced himself ‘overjoyed’ by the news, and is said to have written a congratulatory letter to the couple.
However, the tragic truth is that – unless there is a thawing of polar icecap proportions in his relationship with Meghan – Mr Markle is unlikely ever to see his sixth grandchild.
As I discovered when researching Meghan’s family background, Mr Markle’s vainglorious pride and mulish stubbornness are commensurate with his 6ft 3in, 20-stone stature.
According to those who know him, he is therefore highly unlikely to eat humble pie by apologising to Meghan, for the word ‘sorry’ is not in his lexicon.
Yet today, how he must regret lining his pockets by stunting up those grubby, pre-wedding paparazzi photographs; then failing to walk his daughter down the aisle after supposedly suffering a suspiciously timed heart attack.
Even then, Meghan, to her credit, was openly supportive of her father, issuing a statement saying she hoped ‘he can be given the support he needs to focus on his health’. Clearly, she hoped he would come to realise his behaviour had to change in accordance with her status.
With insouciance, however, Mr Markle repaid her loyalty by selling her out again, via a string of combustible interviews.
When speaking (without her permission) to Piers Morgan on ITV’s breakfast show, Good Morning, he committed the cardinal sin of revealing Harry’s political views, saying the prince thought Donald Trump ‘ought to be given a chance’, and that he was ‘open to the experiment of Brexit’.
Then he compounded his fauxpas by discussing, far too prematurely, the prospect of Meghan becoming a mother.
In language dredged up from his blue-collar Pennsylvanian roots, he remarked that ‘there’s got to be a child in the making, somewhere soon’.
Stung by the frosty reaction to his TV appearance, and by now stuck in a gigantic hole of his own making, his reaction was to keep on digging. Meghan would be ‘nothing’ without him, he declared in a self-pitying follow-up interview: ‘I made her the duchess she is today. Everything Meghan is, I made her.’
Revealing that he had been totally ostracised by the Royal Family, he added: ‘Perhaps it would be easier for Meghan if I died.’
He also claimed that when Harry phoned him, after his heart attack, the prince had been so ‘rude’ to him for committing his various indiscretions that he had put the phone down on his son-in-law.
The final straw came last week, when an American tabloid revealed that Mr Markle had admitted to snorting cocaine as a younger man. From that point, there really was no way back.
For this grandfather there will be no rough-and-tumble games, no sleepover parties or long country walks. No trips to the park for rides on the swings and games of softball or soccer.
Given his fascinating ancestry, and the many TV and movie stars he worked with during his years as a Hollywood lighting director, Mr Markle must have a treasuretrove of real-life bedtime stories in his memory bank. Now they might never be told.
He is an accomplished amateur photographer, and would surely have relished passing his skills down to his grandchild, as he once did with Meghan, but that is unlikely to happen.
And yet, remembering the closeness that once existed between father and daughter, it should never have been like this.
By all accounts, Mr Markle was not an attentive father to Samantha and Thomas Junior (who is also estranged from him, ironically by dint of his own tawdry attempts to cash in on Meghan’s ascent to the Royal Family).
His relations with their children are said to be cordial but distant. However, he doted on Meghan – whom he called his little ‘buckaroo’ – from the day she was born, devoting an enormous amount of time to her upbringing.
Her parents divorced when she was seven, sharing custody, but during her teens – when her mother often worked away – she lived mainly with her father.
Two years ago, she acknowledged her enormous affection for him with an internet Father’s Day message.
Accompanied by a picture of her father holding her as a baby, she wrote: ‘I’m still your buckaroo and to this day our hugs are still the best in the whole wide world.
‘Thanks for my work ethic, my love of Busby Berkeley films and club sandwiches, for teaching me the importance of handwritten thank you notes, and for giving me the Markle signature nose. I love you.’
Much has changed since she penned that touching message.
Yesterday, a friend of Mr Markle told the Mail that, in his letter of congratulation concerning the pregnancy, he had told Meghan she would ‘make a great mother’ because, despite their recent ‘difficulties’ he believed she remained ‘a very loving and compassionate woman’.
‘He thinks she will be naturally maternal,’ the source added. ‘He said he had been remembering when Doria found out she was pregnant with Meg, and how emotional he felt. He only hopes he can share some of the joy.’
There is a long way back, but maybe – just maybe – this statement, delivered through a friend, was Mr Markle’s way of apologising: his first, tentative attempt at effecting a rapprochement.
So what, then, of the expectant grandmother? The woman whose dignified demeanour and understatedly stylish appearance at the wedding won universal admiration; and whose impeccable dis-
cretion could not be further removed from that of her ex-husband.
In a typically low-key statement, issued notably through Kensington Palace yesterday, Miss Ragland said she was ‘very happy about this lovely news’ and ‘looks forward to welcoming her first grandchild’.
These carefully chosen words can’t conceal her utter elation, however. When Meghan was a girl, her mother taught her to become an accomplished cook (the duchess still prepares the wholesome Mexican and Italian dishes they made together), ensured she completed her homework, and, later, advised her on how to handle the attention of boys.
Though Meghan enjoyed a good education, first at an exclusive private kindergarten in Hollywood and later at a top Roman Catholic girls’ school, and mingled with famous actors through her father’s work, Miss Ragland was also eager for her to experience the harsher side of life, and would take her on trips to Jamaica to show her how the less privileged lived.
Meghan, whom she nicknamed ‘Flower’, credits her with instilling in her the social conscience that now inspires her humanitarian work. Doubtless Miss Ragland will hope that she can do the same for her daughter’s child. More immediately, however, she will aim to be of practical help to Meghan.
Last month, she was spotted taking babycare classes in Pasadena, California, prompting speculation, not only that Meghan was pregnant, but that she was against her daughter following the traditional royal path by entrusting much of her child’s day-to-day care to a nanny. Miss Ragland – who already specialises in teaching prenatal yoga – took lessons in breastfeeding, child birth, newborn baby care, and first aid at the Cradle Company, an LA-based parenting clinic.
Rumours about a royal pregnancy gathered pace when it emerged she had given up her full-time job as a social worker in Los Angeles in May. However, senior royal aides insist this interpretation is incorrect. ‘She has her own life in LA, with her dogs, and it will continue that way,’ said one.
Perhaps so, but a daughter’s reliance on her mother’s support is never greater than when she has her first baby, and Miss Ragland will certainly play an important role. Whether the child will one day forge a close relationship with its exiled grandfather remains to be seen.