IMRAN KHAN, the former Pakistan cricket captain, will reveal publicly this
week how he was asked by Diana, Princess of Wales to act as her marriage
broker with the heart surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan just three months before her
death.
His disclosure in a television documentary about his role as the go-between
will discredit claims by Mohamed Fayed, the Egyptian owner of Harrods, that
the late Princess and his son, Dodi, were intending to marry.
In the hour-long programme to be shown on Tuesday, Mr Khan says that his
private conversations with the Princess in May 1997 - during her visit to
Pakistan - left him in no doubt of her love for Dr Hasnat Khan and her desire
to marry him. Like other friends of the Princess, Mr Khan suggests that her
relationship with Dodi Fayed was a summer romance, possibly a calculated
tactic to make Dr Khan jealous and persuade him to marry her.
"She had been involved with him for two years and she had wanted to marry
him. It was clear that she was very deeply in love with Dr Hasnat and I just
don't think she could have got over it that quickly," said Mr Khan. Mr Khan
says that the heart surgeon, who lives in Chelsea, is shy, dignified and
reserved. "These factors must have attracted her," he said. "She had decided
he was the man she wanted to live with."
When the Princess and Dodi Fayed were killed in a car crash in August 1997,
the cricketer-turned-politician had already made plans to fly to London from
Lahore, and intended to meet Dr Khan. Having married Jemima Goldsmith,
the British daughter of the late financier Sir James Goldsmith, Mr Khan
understood the difficulties of a mixed marriage.
"I had it in my mind that I was going to talk to him. At least to find out what
was the reason [for his reluctance to marry her] because maybe there was
some reason that she [the Princess] wasn't aware of. Maybe I could speak to
him because having married someone from outside my culture, if there was
something that could be cleared or some advice that could be given, then
maybe I would be able to help." Only the death of the Princess ended his
mission as the go-between. "Before that could happen, that tragic incident
took place," he says.
The documentary, Diana: Her Last Love, to be shown on Channel 5,
discloses that even during her summer fling with Dodi Fayed, the Princess was
in touch with Dr Khan's family telling them not to read anything significant into
the relationship. The programme suggests that Dr Khan had ended their
relationship in July because he disliked the media attention that surrounded her
every move, and because his strict Muslim family - who were accustomed to
arranged marriages - found it impossible to accept a divorced Western
women into the fold, even if she was a British princess. The Princess refused
to accept his decision was final, however, and sought to convince him that,
given time, their relationship could work.
Shortly after the Paris crash, Mr Fayed claimed that his son and the Princess
were planning to marry and that he had bought her an engagement ring even
though their intimate relationship had lasted less than a month. However,
former staff of the Harrods owner have dismissed his claims, insisting that Mr
Fayed exaggerated the importance of the summer romance.
In the documentary, members of Dr Khan's family speak openly of his love
for the Princess. Ashfaq Ahmed, his great-uncle, says: "I can say with
certainty that he was greatly in love with her, and he was very much
impressed by her personality. Not by her beauty - by her humanity." On
September 6, 1997, a week after the death of the Princess, Dr Khan made a
discreet appearance at her funeral service in Westminster Abbey. He sat with
his head bowed, wearing dark glasses and overcome by grief.
Dr Khan, 40, who works with Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub at Harefield
Hospital in Middlesex and the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and , has
never spoken publicly about his relationship with the Princess. His family and
friends are convinced that he never will.
~*~
Queen's cousin in 'sub-standard' care
home(Electronic Telegraph)
By Chris Hastings, David Bamber and Jessica Berry
A COUSIN of the Queen is living in a charity-run nursing home which has
been strongly criticised by council care inspectors.
Katherine Bowes Lyon, 74, who is a niece of Queen Elizabeth the Queen
Mother, has her weekly fees of £771.49 paid for by the NHS in the home
which last year only "partly met" official standards of care.
Ketwin House in South Nutfield, Surrey, has been criticised for poor staffing
levels, insufficient safety checks and the inappropriate treatment of residents,
all of whom, like Miss Bowes Lyon, are mentally handicapped.
Key concerns were the handling of some vulnerable female residents by male
care staff, as well as a lack of proper controls over the handling of patients'
finances. Inspectors were shocked to find that a male member of staff was
bathing a female resident and there was also criticism that the lack of locks on
some toilet doors was leading to frequent invasions of privacy.
The report, which was compiled in 1999 and which also highlighted
"management issues", urged Prospect Housing Association, which runs the
home, to introduce a number of changes.
Miss Bowes Lyon is one of nine residents in the home, including her cousin
Idonea Fane. They were moved to the home in 1996 after the closure of the
Royal Earlswood Hospital in nearby Redhill. They had been classed as
mentally disturbed.
Maude Steuart, who is a board member of Prospect Housing Association and
chairman of the Friends of Royal Earlswood Hospital, said: "There have been
problems with Ketwin House but they are all being put right. The people in
this home were meant to be going somewhere else when the hospital closed
down. But that option fell through and they ended up in Ketwin House.
"Prior to their arrival this building had not been used for elderly people. It had
been a council mother and baby unit or something like that. So obviously it
was minus a lot of things which had to be put in while the residents were
there."
Ms Steuart said she had met Miss Bowes Lyon and was aware of who she
was. She said: "A lot of fuss is made over the fact that the Queen Mother
hasn't contacted her. But how often are people really in contact with their
niece or cousin? I can assure you that this lady is very happy with the level of
care provided by the home."
A spokesman for Prospect Housing Association last night insisted that all of
the recommendations made in the 1999 report had now been met. In a joint
statement the housing association and Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust said: "We
value the registration visits as a positive process which helps us to improve the
services we provide."
The care arrangements for Miss Bowes Lyon, whose father was the Queen
Mother's brother, have previously embarrassed the Royal Family. Until 1987
she was listed in Burke's Peerage as having died in 1961. In fact she had been
in the Royal Earlswood Hospital since 1941. Her sister Nerissa, who also
spent much of her life in the hospital, is buried in Redhill cemetery.
They were said to have a mental age of six and were originally placed in the
hospital because this was the customary way to treat people who were
mentally handicapped.
~*~
Holding back the years: looking good at
50(Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson
THE Princess Royal has long been recognised as a woman with no time for
fashion fads, and the most recent photographs of her suggest that her chosen
regime of fresh air and no nonsense has proved to be the most effective
beauty therapy of all.
She looks radiant in pictures released yesterday to commemorate her 50th
birthday on Tuesday. The photographs were taken at her 730-acre estate,
Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, by John Swannell, who pictured her
looking glamorous in a long gown, elegant in a formal seated pose wearing a
blue dress, and relaxed in baggy jumper and casual trousers sitting beside a
rustic stone wall.
According to senior members of the Royal Household, the Princess has never
been happier and more fulfilled: a view confirmed by Mr Swannell, who has
been photographing the Royal Family for more than 25 years. "I last saw her
when I took the photographs for her 40th birthday and she was looking
younger for her 50th birthday than she did then. She was in a lovely mood
and we had a great day," he told The Telegraph yesterday.
"She just seems younger than ever and didn't seem to have a care in the
world. She told me she is still using some of the pictures that I took then [for
her 40th]. I said, 'Great, I will see you on your 60th,' and she replied, 'Heaven
forbid'. She is so easy to photograph, so easygoing and she set aside the
whole day.
"The weather was great, except for the last picture, which I shot in the pouring
rain outside and she was laughing her head off. I told her, 'The rain won't
show,' and she just carried on as if it wasn't raining."
Newby Hands, the health and beauty director of Harpers & Queen, was
astonished by the Princess's look at 50 when she saw the photographs
yesterday. She said: "She looks fantastic. You come across so many
high-profile women these days who, at 50, look good and say they just do
nothing but yoga and deep breathing, but you know they have had loads of
cosmetic surgery since the age of 38: then every woman over 40 feels terrible
and depressed."
"But, having looked at the photographs closely, the Princess Royal has had
nothing done and she looks fabulous. There are obviously great genes there
and she comes from good stock, but the clothes she is wearing are all model
size, which really is amazing for a woman of 50."
Michael Rasser, the co-owner of the leading London hair salon Michaeljohn,
who helped to organise the shoot, agreed that the Princess had aged well. Mr
Rasser, who has known her for 29 years, said: "She has a wonderful figure,
face and skin. I never thought we could top her engagement pictures with
Mark [Phillips], but these are a credit to her. You can't believe she is 50."
The Princess is not planning a special celebration for Tuesday, having already
enjoyed a joint birthday party at Windsor Castle as a guest of the Queen in
June. It was a party to commemorate the 18th birthday of Prince William, the
100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the 40th birthday of
the Duke of York and the 70th birthday of Princess Margaret, which falls in
eight days.
By contrast, the Princess, the Queen's second eldest child, will spend her
birthday quietly with her family and is currently enjoying a summer break with
them. The Princess lives at Gatcombe Park with her second husband, Cdre
Tim Laurence, 45, and her two children by Capt Mark Phillips, Peter, 22,
and Zara, 19. Last year, the Princess attended more engagements than any
other member of the Royal Family: 455 in the United Kingdom and 228
overseas. She is the patron or president of 222 charities, including Save the
Children, whose president she became in 1970, aged 20.
Despite an early reputation for being brusque, the Princess - largely as a result
of her sheer hard work for charities - is now one of the most popular
members of the Royal Family. This weekend, Mr Swannell revealed that his
latest royal photographic assignment was more straightforward than his
previous one: to take a picture of four generations of the Royal Family - the
Queen Mother, the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince William - for a
first-class stamp.
"It was one of the most important royal pictures since the reign of Queen
Victoria with the four generations being photographed. It was probably the
most difficult royal job that I have ever had," he said of the project to
commemorate the Queen Mother's 100th birthday. "I had to use stand-ins for
the shape of the picture as I had only 15 minutes because of the Queen
Mother's age and the fact that she had already had a demanding day. This job
[with the Princess] was far, far easier."
Friends of the Princess yesterday put her good looks down to healthy eating -
she loves smoked salmon from Balmoral - and country living. She does not
smoke, never drinks anything stronger than Coca-Cola, and is up early riding.
However, she has no time for the gym or beauty salons, and "doesn't have an
ounce of vanity in her", said one.