Princess Margaret ‘used to visit Aids patients in secret’
PRINCESS MARGARET secretly visited a hospice to comfort patients with Aids “long before” Diana, Princess of Wales, was photographed there, her former lady-in-waiting has said.
Lady Glenconner said her late son was among patients whom the Queen’s sister made laugh and momentarily forget their suffering.
In an interview in The Telegraph Magazine about her new memoir, which Lady Glenconner calls a “love letter to Princess Margaret”, she discloses the compassionate side to the Queen’s sister, who comforted her after the death of her son Henry from an Aids-related illness aged 29 in 1990.
Recalling her visits to see him in the London Lighthouse hospice, she said: “It was long before Diana, Princess of Wales, went with her posse of photographers. Nobody knew [Princess Margaret] had gone. She wasn’t tactile. She didn’t stroke [patients] or hold their hands, but she made them laugh. And they loved her. She made them forget.”
Princess Diana is still remembered for her groundbreaking work to reduce the stigma of HIV, opening the country’s first purpose-built centre in 1987 and being photographed shaking patients’ hands.
Lady Glenconner, a close friend, confidante and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret for 30 years, said she hoped to change the public perception of the late royal away from the socialite portrayed in The Crown.
“I feel she has been misrepresented,” said Lady Glenconner, 87. “A lot of rubbish has been written about her.”
She has only seen The Crown “occasionally”, she said, but is looking forward to being portrayed in the next series.
Of Helena Bonham Carter, who will play Princess Margaret, she said: “Helena is the right height and figure, and although her eyes aren’t blue, there’s a similar glint of mischievous intelligence. I think she’ll make a wonderful Princess Margaret. It’s rather lovely to think that, after so long apart, we’ll be reunited on screen.”
Interview: The Telegraph Magazine