Royals have not shopped in Harrods since 1997
Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed is cutting
the store's ties with the Royal Family, going as
far as banning the Duke of Edinburgh.
Mr al-Fayed has told them they are welcome
to shop in Harrods - as long as they do not
bring Prince Philip.
He has also confirmed
that he will not be
reapplying for Royal
warrants from the
Queen or Prince
Charles when the
current ones expire
next year, ending a
45-year association.
All Royal crests will be
removed from the store's Brompton Road
facade at the end of this summer.
The move follows the duke's announcement
earlier this year that he is to withdraw his
Royal warrant from Harrods on 31 December
2000.
A "significant decline in the trading
relationship" with the store was cited as the
reason.
Mr al-Fayed said since neither the Queen nor
Prince Charles have shopped in Harrods for
several years, displaying their crests would be
"totally misleading and hypocritical".
"We are proud of the Harrods' reputation as
the world's finest store and we naturally
welcome discerning shoppers from all over the
world," he said.
Hypocritical'
"The Royal Family, with the exception of Prince
Philip, are welcome to shop at Harrods at any
time.
"Should they return to our store and spend any
of their vast fortune with us then we would
reconsider our position with regards to applying
for the Royal warrants.
"In these circumstances Harrods displaying
Royal warrants would actually mean something
and therefore be justified."
Royal warrants from
the Queen, held since
1955, and Prince of
Wales, held since 1980,
both expire at the end
of 2001.
Relations between Mr
al-Fayed and the Royal
Family have been
strained since the fatal
car crash involving his
son Dodi and Diana,
Princess of Wales in
1997.
During his libel trial against former MP Neil
Hamilton, Mr al-Fayed accused Prince Philip of
directing UK secret services in organising the
Paris car crash.
Investigators say the crash was an accident,
but Mr al-Fayed maintains it was arranged with
the Royal Family's knowledge because they did
not like Diana dating an Egyptian.
It is understood that Prince Philip was angered
by the allegations.
~*~
Queen drops down rich list(BBC News)
The Queen has slipped to 19th in a ranking of
the world's richest women, according to a new
report.
The list of the world's 200 richest women,
published in this week's edition of
EuroBusiness, also reveals that the Queen is
not even the wealthiest royal - despite her
£1.9bn fortune.
That privilege goes to Queen Beatrix of The
Netherlands who is reported to be worth
£2.09bn.
The top place, by a vast margin, went to
Helen Walton, 81, whose husband founded the
global hypermarket Wal-Mart.
She is said to have a personal fortune of
£27.6bn.
Few Brits listed
In second place was Liliane Bettencourt, 74,
whose father founded the L'Oreal empire, with
£8.5bn.
Kevin Cahill, wealth editor of EuroBusiness,
spent 11 months trawling the fortunes of 560
women to establish the richest 200, each
worth more than £300m.
Only 20 of the 200 are British, with Lily Safra,
originally from Mitcham, Surrey, the richest of
the Britons with more than £3bn. Yet she is
ranked only at number 11 in the world.
Already a wealthy woman - her father made a
fortune building railway carriages in Brazil - she
married three times and her third husband, who
died last year, left her £2.4bn.
Mafia women
But it is women who are not named in the list
that Mr Cahill finds most fascinating.
He believes the wife of one of the major Italian
Mafia figures could be worth a fortune of
£10bn and that women around the world are
helping to run criminal empires.
He came across the information too late for
inclusion in his report, but Mr Cahill explained
that while figures of the Mafia languish in
prison, their wives take over the running of the
family business.
"The women are supposedly far more
dangerous than the men," he said.
~*~
God and a lifejacket' save Diana's
mother from death(Electronic Telegraph)
By Auslan Cramb, Scotland Correspondent
FRANCES SHAND KYDD, the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales, almost
drowned during a recent salmon fishing holiday on the River Spey.
She disclosed yesterday that she had been saved by "God and her lifejacket"
and had decided to speak about it to warn people of the importance of safe
angling. Mrs Shand Kydd, 64, was fishing alone when the accident happened
near Grantown-on-Spey in the Highlands and used her salmon fly rod to pull
herself towards the bank where she then suffered an asthma attack.
It was the first time in 20 years that Mrs Shand Kydd, the grandmother of
Princes William and Harry, had fallen into a river. She had been very shaken
by the incident but later described it as just "another bruise" in a long line of
problems. She said that life remained "wonderful" despite everything that had
happened to her. "It just shows that God watches over all our lives all the time
and it is he who decides when our time is due."
The fall occurred when she put her foot into an underwater hole and she was
only kept afloat by her lifejacket, which inflated immediately. Mrs Shand
Kydd said: "The water was freezing and my hands in particular were numb.
The water went over my waders and my whole body was gradually becoming
colder by the second. The weight from the water was also weighing down my
body.
"The river was flowing very fast, but fortunately I still had my rod and used it
to drag myself into the shallows. I then hauled myself on my hands and knees
to the bank. I was exhausted and very cold. It was then I suffered an asthma
attack. There was nobody else around. I sat on the bank and collected
myself. I was very wet and cold. I took my wet clothes off and walked to a
fishing hut 200 yards away.
"Later I met my friends for lunch and made light of the incident so as not to
worry them. But I know first-hand the importance of wearing a lifejacket
now. It was a stipulation of the insurance for the beat we rented that
lifejackets had to be worn. It proved a very sensible stipulation. I remember
being scared afterwards, thinking of what could have happened but I got
myself together."
"I cannot stress enough, to people of all ages, the importance of wearing a
lifejacket." Speaking at her home on the Isle of Seil, near Oban, Mrs Shand
Kydd said that she was "due for an accident" after two decades of angling.
Mrs Shand Kydd had been fishing out of sight of a group of friends on the
river where she was taught to cast by Arthur Oglesby, the expert angler and
fishing author. She once caught five salmon, including one weighing 22lb, in a
day.
She said yesterday: "I have many problems in life but catching fish is not one
of them. But I do think life's wonderful despite everything that has happened
to me. You need bruises to know blessings and I have known both. This
accident is just another." The incident on the river happened at the end of
May.
Mrs Shand Kydd is a keen supporter of Scotland's sea fishermen, patron of
the Mallaig and North West Fishermen's Association. She has also comforted
the families of fishermen who died at sea, including the relatives of the seven
men who drowned in the Solway Harvester in January.
~*~
Prince honours his mother on coat
of arms (UK Times)
BY ADAM SHERWIN
PRINCE WILLIAM has paid tribute to the memory of
his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, by restoring her
family insignia to his new coat of arms.
In his first official act, the 18-year-old Prince requested
that the small, red scallop shell which derives from the
Spencer coat of arms be included in the design, which
was unveiled yesterday to mark the Prince's coming of
age.
The scallop motif has been borne by the Earls Spencer
since the 16th century and was a popular symbol for
medieval pilgrims. It now appears three times on the
Prince's Arms, in the centre of the shield and on the necks
of the lion and unicorn that support the shield.
The Arms also draw on the Royal Arms used by the
Queen and his father, the Prince of Wales. Prince William,
as heir apparent to the heir apparent, will be the only one
of the Queen's grandchildren to be given a three-pointed
label on his arms. Five-pointed labels are normally used
for grandchildren.
Peter Gwynne-Jones, responsible for royal heraldry, said:
"It is a welcome innovation to incorporate maternal
symbols into the Royal Family's arms, and it is something
that Prince William and his family wanted to do.
"Prince William's Arms will change, as shall the Prince of
Wales's, but a precedent has been set that others in the
Royal Family may well follow."
A royal licence is being drawn up to grant the coat of
arms officially to the Prince, who celebrated his birthday
last month.
~*~
A Cinderella-style story of true love that began and ended on the banks of the River Nile (Uk Times)
THE BEGUM AGA KHAN III
The Begum Aga Khan III was born on February 15,
1906. She died on July 1 aged 94
TRANSFORMED from a
lowly tram conductor's
daughter, via the position of
Miss France, into the most
glamorous princess in the
Oriental world, the Begum Aga
Khan died having been a widow
for 43 years. She had married
the late Aga Khan III, the 48th
hereditary Imam of the Ismaili
Muslim community which has a
following of 15 million people
worldwide, as his fourth and
final wife. The current Aga Khan is his grandson.
The Begum first caught the Aga Khan's eye when she
danced a tango at a party thrown by an Egyptian princess.
She was holidaying at the Mena House Hotel in the shadow
of the pyramids outside Cairo, a city his ancestors, the
Fatimid Caliphs, had built in the 10th century. After her
conversion to Islam, they were married in the city during a
religious ceremony in 1938 and thoughout the forthcoming
years he introduced her to the delights of the Orient. They
also bought a villa overlooking the Nile at Aswan, 580 miles
south of Cairo. After the Aga Khan's divorce from his third
wife, Andrée Carron, the couple enjoyed a civil wedding in
Geneva in 1944 attended by the British Consul-General from
Zurich, emphasising the couple's ties with this country (the
British rulers in India gave him the title His Highness, and as
a religious leader he was exempt from taxes).
The Aga Khan was a well-known international figure who
advised European royalty and served as the president of the
League of Nations in Geneva during the late 1930s. He was
the founding president of the Muslim League in 1906 in what
was then British India, and later played a significant role in
the movement to establish the Muslim state of Pakistan.
Considered the richest man in the world, on the diamond
jubilee of his succession as Aga Khan he was weighed in
diamonds. He and the Begum were regular players on the
London social scene, frequently entering their horses in the
Derby, which he won five times.
In the south of France (where the Aga Khan built a villa for
the Begum named Yakymour, a combination of their
combined initials - Yvette Aga Khan - and the French word
for love, amour) they became the most glittering hosts in
Europe. During the Cannes film festival they held parties and
dinners at the villa, which was famous for its exquisite
gardens, to which the great and the good were invariably
invited.
Among their many guests at Yaskymour were the Duke of
Edinburgh, Somerset Maugham and Rita Hayworth (who
was briefly married to the Aga Khan's son from an earlier
marriage, Aly Khan). In 1956 the couple were guests at the
fairy tale wedding of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of
Monaco. Not surprisingly, Yakymour was frequently
besieged by journalists and photographers anxious for
pictures or snatches of gossip. "One had the impression that
there was a journalist hidden behind every mimosa bush,"
complained the Begum.
On one occasion Rita Hayworth was so exasperated by the
media that she had herself rolled up in a thick Turkish carpet
and spirited away in a removal van in front of the eyes of the
world's unsuspecting newspaper reporters - something the
Aga Khan later disapproved of: "If at times we do wonderful
things like my winning the Derby or my son marrying the
prettiest girl in the world," he said, "we must not be surprised
if the newspapers come after us for news."
When the Aga Khan and the Begum were ambushed by
bandits while leaving Yakymour for Nice airport one day in
1949, the Aga Khan called after the robbers, who had stolen
jewels worth £200,000, "Here you are, gentlemen. You
have forgotten something," and handed them a tip. Three
hundred police and security guards were mobilised and
eventually some of the property was recovered and the
perpetrators brought to justice.
In 1954 the Aga Khan, himself a direct descendant of the
Prophet Muhammad, conferred on the Begum the title Mat
Salamat (Spiritual Mother) of the Ismaili; he also named her
Om Habibeh, Little Mother of the Beloved. That year she
performed the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims
should undertake once during their lifetime.
The Begum grew into a woman of exquisite taste and culture.
"We are passionately fond of Wagner's music," she
exclaimed during one interview. With her husband she
travelled extensively and they patronised many artistic
events. She always maintained that it was the Aga Khan who
taught her everything she knew: "Of course, I always
appreciate beauty," she said. "But he taught me how really to
enjoy a lovely sunset, moonlight, to know the stars, the
colours and scents of flowers, to like music, ballet and
opera, to appreciate everything that is beautiful in life. Most
important, he taught me to love Islam."
She became an accomplished sculptress, once telling a story
against herself of how she set off from Paris to their home in
Egypt with an enormous packing case full of clay. She was
stopped by Egyptian customs who told her how the clay
from Aswan was the finest in the world. "So I threw away
the contents of the French packing case and when we came
home I filled it with Aswan clay which I brought triumphantly
back to Paris," she recollected with glee many years later.
During her husband's last years, when she was nursing him
through old age, the Begum made a clay bust of the Aga
Khan that, unlike other images, portrayed him without his
horn-rimmed spectacles. "I am afraid my husband has a very
difficult face to carve," she explained to a newspaper
interviewer. "Consider his eyes, for instance. They are not
the same. As for his nose - well, it is not a straight nose,
though it is a very small one. . ."
She was born Yvette Blanche Labrousse in Sète, near
Montpellier, the daughter of a tram conductor and a
seamstress. At the age of six months her family moved to a
small flat in the Rue d'Antibes in Cannes, overlooking the
land where many years later the Aga Khan would build
Yakymour. They were later to move to Lyons.
Tall, statuesque and extremely beautiful, Labrousse soon
rose above her provincial origins and, after winning the Miss
Lyons title in 1929, became Miss France in 1930. She
visited Rio de Janeiro for the Miss World competition but on
that occasion the title escaped her. She became something of
a personality, modelling clothes and judging beauty contests.
However, she shied away from the offers of film roles and
modelling assignments that were showered upon her,
choosing instead to work with her mother at their shop in
Cannes.
After the Aga Khan's death in 1957 the Begum, the richest
and loneliest woman in the Islamic world, began to lead
something of a nomadic existence, migrating between
Yakymour, Aswan and the family's Villa Barakat at Versoix,
by Lake Geneva. She also bought a motor-cruiser to sail
around the Mediterranean with her father and later became
embroiled in a row with the family when the new Aga Khan
and his father, Aly Khan, wanted to sell the Geneva
property. She preferred to convert it into a shrine for Ismaili
Muslims, with whom she continued to keep in touch.
Despite these irritations, the Begum was an elegant widow.
Although she remained a regular and popular fixture at
society events in both England and the south of France for
many years, she entertained no further suitors. She
contributed to numerous charitable causes, particularly those
involving women's welfare and those concerning poverty
relief in Aswan, where she donated equipment and materials
to hospitals and schools.
Every day for 43 years either the Begum or Sheikh Ahmed
Ibrahim, whom she hired in 1963 to spend eight hours a day
chanting verses from the Koran over her late husband's
tomb, laid a fresh red rose at the Aga Khan's sandstone
mausoleum in Aswan where she is now buried next to him
.
The couple had no children. She is survived by her stepson,
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, and three step-grandchildren
including the current Aga Khan.