Camilla in her own words

WHAT THE DUCHESS REALLY THINKS ABOUT LIFE AS A ROYAL

THE DUCHESS of Cornwall has shared her views for the first time about her relationship with the Prince of Wales and the pressures of marrying into the Royal Family.

In the most revealing and personal article, with access to her family and close friends, Camilla discloses the difficulties she faced on becoming Prince Charles’s second wife and how she never thinks about becoming Queen.

In a series of intimate exchanges with friends, published today in The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine, she also highlights the physical and emotional burdens of her hectic schedule as she approaches her 70th birthday in July.

‘Sometimes you get up in the morning and think you can’t do it, and you just have to,’ Camilla says in the article, written by Mail on Sunday editor Geordie Greig.

‘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-half-empty or glass-half-full. I always think hopefully. You just have to get on with it. Being British!’

Twelve years after the Windsor wedding which sealed a love affair stretching back to the early 1970s, the former Camilla Parker Bowles admits that she was once almost a prisoner in her own home. It followed the news that she and Prince Charles had rekindled their relationship. For a year she was barely able to leave the house, fearful of public hostility and press hounding.

She passed the time reading and learning to paint. ‘I couldn’t really go anywhere,’ she says. ‘But the children came and went as normal – they just got on with it – and so did great friends.

‘It was horrid. It was a deeply unpleasant time and I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it.’

The Duchess could not have survived that time without the support of her children, Tom and Laura, her sister Annabel, to whom she speaks on the phone daily, and her brother Mark Shand, who died in 2014 after a fall in New York.

She pays tribute to Mark, saying: ‘Mark always wanted something. When I heard his voice on the phone saying “Camillsy”, I knew immediately that he wanted something. But God, I miss him.’

Although Camilla doesn’t think she is tough, she admits she is a strong character. ‘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.’

Her children used to make a daily count of the paparazzi hiding in her garden, spotting them with the aid of binoculars kept in her bathroom. However, brought up to ‘never complain and never explain. Don’t whinge – just get on with it’, Camilla came through the ordeal.

Today, Britain’s second most senior female Royal is a popular and hardworking member of The Firm. She performs more than 200 Royal engagements every year, including gruelling overseas tours with her husband.

She protects Charles from over-work and is known to bring warmth and emotional intelligence to her own duties.

Camilla also deploys her famed sense of humour when things go awry.

‘You’ve got to laugh through most things,’ she confesses. ‘There are situations where it’s very difficult not to lose it completely, especially if something goes terribly wrong and everybody sits there for a split second. You do have to swallow and pinch yourself very hard to not laugh.’

In the UK she relaxes by spending time in her own home, Ray Mill in Wiltshire, where she scrambles breakfast eggs on her Aga, and entertains her five grandchildren. She is a fan of Nordic noir crime shows on television and reads Robert Harris novels and books from the Booker Prize list. She is also devoted to her Jack Russells Beth and Bluebell.

Camilla says she takes each day as it comes and does not think about any possible accession. If ever she became too uppity, she says, her friends would simply tell her: ‘Pull yourself together! Don’t be so bloody grand!’

ON THE PRESSURE OF PUBLIC LIFE Sometimes you get up and think you can’t do it, and you have to

ON THE LOSS OF HER BROTHER Mark always wanted something. But God, I miss him

ON HER EARLY NEGATIVE PRESS It was horrid. I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it

ON HER DOWN-TO-EARTH STYLE If I got uppity my friends would say: Don’t be so bloody grand!