The duchess said she had to "train" Andrew to give love
The Duchess of York has claimed her
ex-husband Prince Andrew was brought up
"without much love or affection", in an
interview with an American magazine.
She said she had to "train" the Duke of York to
give love, because he did not learn it from his
parents.
The duchess also
confessed to magazine
In-Style that she feels
jealous when her former
husband dates other
women.
But she said Prince
Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, had "publicly"
ruled out the possibility of her remarrying the
father of her two daughters.
Speaking about the Duke of York, she said:
"He's learning to be a better dad. He was
brought up without much emotion or affection.
"Yes his mum and dad felt great love, but love
needs to be demonstrative.
"He has had to retrain himself into
understanding what it is to give love."
She added that Prince Philip was opposed to
the idea of a remarriage, saying: "At the
moment the Duke of Edinburgh says, 'Never will
that woman remarry my son'."
'Utmost respect'
But her spokeswoman has denied that the
duchess' comments were critical of the Royal
Family.
"At no point has the duchess attacked Her
Majesty the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh in
this piece," she said.
"She has always had the utmost respect for
them and she was clearly making an
observation about the way children were
brought up in that generation."
Her comments about Prince Andrew's
upbringing are similar to Prince Charles'
description of his own lonely early life, which
appeared in his authorised biography in 1994.
Prince Charles was said
to feel he lacked the
full attention of his
mother and that he
was cruelly belittled by
his father.
One member of the
Royal family singled out
for praise by the
duchess was the
Queen Mother.
"I love her," she told
the magazine. "Her
Majesty is a great great-granny to the
children.
"She's fantastic and they love her, and I've
brought them up to believe very firmly in her
and the monarchy."
The duchess said her work advising
WeightWatchers and taking care of her
daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, kept her too
busy to go out with men.
But she admitted, when asked, to feeling
envious when Andrew was seeing other
women, saying: "Yes, I'm human."
The duchess also said she was "not afraid to
be different", despite admitting that her
children were often told at school: "Your mom
is so mad, your mom is so whacky."
~*~
Royal staff want end to 'medieval' pay
deals(Electronic Telegraph)
By Chris Hastings
THE page of the chambers, the travelling yeoman, the head coffee room
maid, her three under-maids and the rest of the Royal Household servants
have asked the Queen to end their bewildering system of pay and perks.
There are more than 120 titles and levels of pay among the household's 600
staff. Now the Public and Commercial Services union, which represents
domestic staff in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Holyrood House,
wants the ancient system simplified. The staff are willing to forgo the antique
charm of having three grades of dresser for the Queen, or five grades for
cooks, in exchange for a straightforward pay deal.
They believe that the system, largely established in the late 14th century, is
used to justify a structure that depresses salary levels at the bottom of the pay
scale. They also claim that some are paid much less than others, even while
effectively doing the same jobs. The complex system of titles and grades
means that it is almost impossible to compare wages on an impartial basis. A
recent four per cent pay rise has done little to help the lowest paid, some of
whom are entitled to claim state benefits to top up their wages. It was recently
reported in a Sunday newspaper that a junior chef was paid £8,000 a year
and had had his salary increased with Working Families' Tax Credit benefits
to £11,000.
The union has asked for the Royal Household, which is funded by the
taxpayer, to be brought into line with other parts of the Civil Service which
has only seven pay grades. Riki Wrigley, a national officer for the CPS with
responsibility for the household, has complained about the system to Elizabeth
Huncker, the head of personnel for the household, and to John Parsons, the
deputy controller of the purse.
Mr Wrigley said: "It is medieval. It acts as a bar on promotion and confines a
number of members to low wages. We want to replace the system of 40
grades with about seven. No other part of the Civil Service has this many pay
bands. The Ministry of Defence which employs far more people, managed to
drop from 1,000 grades to seven. I don't see why the Royal Household
shouldn't."
Figures obtained by The Telegraph show that last year the lowest paid staff
earned £6,513 if they were provided with accommodation and £8,317 if they
did not have a home with the job. At the top of the scale, staff could earn
£69,907. The union claims that many staff leave because of the anomalies.
Some staff in Edinburgh are paid less than their equals in London and all staff
at Buckingham Palace have free meals while not everyone at Windsor has this
entitlement.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that the system reflected the reality of
royal work. The spokesman said: "There are 300 different types of job
ranging from helicopter pilots to grooms. These jobs don't exist in most parts
of the Civil Service so a comparison isn't really genuine. There used to be 246
grades so the fact that there are 40 now is a significant reduction. We carried
out a review of wage rates in 100 organisations employing similar types of
staff. Members of the Royal Household who were paid less than the market
rate received an increase."
The Queen's private residences, such as Sandringham and Balmoral, are not
funded by the taxpayer.
~*~
The new Charles: as odd as the old one (The Independant)
By Sholto Byrnes
During Princess Diana's life, Prince Charles was said to be
frustrated that his own good works were so often
overshadowed by those of his wife. Now it has been said that
he has ventured deep into the touchy-feely culture most
associated with Diana, by visiting the Aids charity London
Lighthouse, where she was a familiar figure. On the same day
he had visited another charity in London, where a baby who
had previously been crying was calmed instantly when placed
in the princely arms.
Earlier last week came the glamour so reminiscent of the
Queen of Hearts: the Prince entertained Drew Barrymore and
Lucy Liu, in Britain for the première of Charlie's Angels, to
dinner at St James's Palace. The pair are to become
international ambassadors for the Prince's Trust. The veteran
Royal correspondent James Whitaker went so far as to write:
"The presence of the ghost of Diana is not only in her two
children. It is in Prince Charles, too."
So who exactly is the heir to the throne? Has the stiff figure of
yesterday, forever shooting his cuffs and tormented by
self-doubt, been replaced by "a pretty straightforward kinda
guy" like the Prime Minister?
The answer has to be no. Straightforward the Prince of Wales
is not. His friends, interests and roles in life so far have been
varied to the point of contradiction, and if we are seeing one
side to him at the moment, we can be certain we will see
others in the near future.
The stiffness has certainly not gone. Part of the schedule
during his recent visit to the Czech Republic had to be hastily
rearranged when it transpired that the Prince does not like to
get out of bed before 9am, and prefers not to start his working
day until 10am. An official at the British Embassy in Prague
hoped that this rule would be flexible enough to allow a
leaving time of 9.55am one morning – but the suggestion was
greeted by a flat refusal. An eminently civilised rule, you might
think, but one more suited to the whims of an 18th-century
monarch than one who expects to accede to the throne in the
21st.
Food is also an area in which the Prince's hosts need to tread
with some sensitivity. There is a vast list of dos and don'ts,
including not using tap water to steam his vegetables. They
must be prepared with mineral water, of a brand that he takes
with him wherever he goes. His staff also carry the ingredients
for an evening martini, which only they are allowed to mix.
Moreover, pudding no longer passes the Windsor lips.
He is often painted as a radical, and his interest in the
environment is undoubted. As someone who was long
branded a loony who talks to his plants, his concern for the
future of the planet now seems quite mainstream in the
recycling society to which we are all supposed to subscribe.
His friendship with Jonathon Porritt, the former director of
Friends of the Earth, and his opposition to GM food are cited
as proof of such leftward leanings. But these green trappings
are figleaves that barely conceal a deeply conservative
individual. His hostility to modern architecture is well known. At
the time he made his "monstrous carbuncle" speech about
the new extension to the National Gallery, however, it was not
quite so well-known to Peter Palumbo, whose proposed
Mansion House Square development was then being
considered. Despite being a polo friend of the Prince,
Palumbo was given no warning that the speech would
describe his development as a "glass stump", and he had to
sit and listen while it was delivered. A letter afterwards from St
James's Palace tried to make amends, but the damage was
done. Prince Charles was later to refer disparagingly to
Palumbo's admired No 1 Poultry in the City of London as a
"1930s wireless".
Such treatment of friends is another, less palatable side to his
character. Many are those who have felt the warmth of the
regal gaze only to feel the chill wind of exclusion on their backs
when they least expect it.
He is also capable of barely controllable anger; and his past
behaviour has certainly given the lie to the saying that only the
upper classes treat servants properly. His former valet Ken
Stronach claimed to be so afraid of his master's anger that he
once made the round trip from Highgrove to London in the
middle of the night because he had forgotten to pack the
Prince's favourite gardening cap. According to Stronach, such
fussiness over his appearance was typical. "If he can't get his
parting straight," he said, "he literally hops up and down,
shaking his fists like a kid."
The Prince's interest in other cultures and religions is
genuine. Islamic architecture fascinates him, and his desire to
be "defender of faith" rather than "defender of the faith"
(namely, the established Church of England), has led many to
praise Charles for being in tune with multicultural Britain.
Although it seems unlikely that he will ever be called the first
black king, as Bill Clinton was called the first black president,
the Prince is definitely more sensitive to such issues than he
used to be. On a winter visit to Sevenoaks School in the
Seventies, he asked one pupil if he had been skiing recently.
No, replied the boy, an Indian, I'm always this colour.
Forays into the political arena have not been hugely
successful. At one point in the 1980s he entertained a group
of lobby journalists to float the idea of a referendum on the
Channel Tunnel. He was politely told that publicly to oppose
one of Margaret Thatcher's great projects would not be a very
good idea. Friendships with the likes of Peter Mandelson have
not stopped Tony Blair implicitly reminding the heir to the
throne that the person on that seat reigns, but does not rule.
The problem remains for the Prince of Wales that he does not
have a properly defined role. Abdication carries the whiff of
1936, and will not be countenanced by the Queen. Meanwhile,
rivalry between courtiers at St James's and Buckingham
Palaces frustrates Charles's desire to take over more of the
monarch's duties, as has been the practice in some
continental royal families. "Conducting a few more MBE
investitures is not what he had in mind," says one close to his
office.
So for the moment the Prince may be talked of as a man who
aims to be "King of Hearts". But no one knows how long he
may have to wait to wear his crown, and in a country
increasingly indifferent to the activities of a royal family that at
best reflects the dysfunctional nature of many families, and at
worst seems a waste of money, perhaps few will care when it
comes to be placed on his head.
By that time maybe Mr Charles Windsor will have retired
happily to Highgrove with his wife, Camilla.
~*~
Runcie full of regret at letting
Diana down (Sunday UK Times)
Christopher Morgan, Religious Affairs Correspondent
SHORTLY before his death, Lord Runcie, the former
Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed his regret that he had not
been able to be more of a pastor to Diana, Princess of Wales.
His sadness is revealed in a final television interview, to be
shown for the first time next month.
He said that his position in the court and the Establishment got
in the way of a close personal relationship with the late
princess. He said he would like to have done more to help her.
Runcie gave the television interview to his son James, a
broadcaster, a week before he died, aged 78, in July.
Runcie, who conducted the royal wedding of the Prince of
Wales and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, gave a candid
assessment of Diana in the interview.
He said: "I subsequently discovered, of course, that with
Princess Diana I think that archbishops of Canterbury were
irrevocably linked up with school chaplains and a form room,
and often figures of fun. Though we were always friends, I think
that it was very difficult for me to touch that other side of her
which went out to more curious avenues of help in time of real
difficulty.
"I wished to be more of a pastor to her, but . . . I was really part
of the Establishment, part of the court, part of the furniture that
came with having to be in the public eye."
Runcie also revealed that he celebrated a service of holy
communion just days before the royal wedding, and it gave him
a flavour of the way both Charles and Diana were approaching
the event.
"I suggested we have a communion service, just the three of us
with my chaplain and a couple of other people. And there is a
rather charming little chapel in Buckingham Palace, tucked
away, which isn't usually used. We opened it up two days
before and we had this service together, which meant a lot to
them, I think.
"There is one moment which I shall always recall. Turning
round, and she was obviously looking very pale, and he put his
hand over to steady her and kept his hand on her arm during
that sacred moment of the service. And I thought for me it
wasn't so much what they thought about marriage or what they
thought about each other, at that particular moment it was the
sincerity with which they approached the day."
The interview takes the form of a discussion of private
memories, and was the last conversation between the father
and son. Runcie, although terminally ill with cancer, appears
relaxed and jovial. It will be broadcast in mid-December as part
of a Channel 4 profile of Runcie, called My Father.
At the end of his interview, Runcie says that human beings are
not "chance atoms" but created for communion with each
other, with the natural world and with God.
"Somebody said, 'The thing I like is that there's quite a lot of
you that isn't a clergyman.' I am not ashamed of that, because
our Lord was not particularly kind to clergymen. They didn't
seem to have been his favourite characters."