PRINCE HARRY intends to spend his gap year in the Swiss Alps working in the mountain village where his father, the Prince of Wales, almost died in an avalanche.
He has told his friends that he wants to improve his skiing while working at the Walserhof hotel in Klosters, where he has stayed during annual ski holidays with his father, his brother Prince William and friends. Friends of the Prince, who will be 17 in September and taking his year out from 2003-4, say that he will get a job in the kitchen and cellar, where he will learn about cooking and fine wine at one of the best restaurants in Switzerland.
They say that he has discussed his plans for his year between school and university with the hotel management and they are keen to accommodate his wishes. The hotel is favoured by members of European royal families and has photographs of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of York at Klosters in its reception.
Prince Harry decided to spend the winter of his gap year in Klosters after skiing there in April: a holiday that his father missed because he thought it inappropriate during the height of the foot and mouth crisis. He is expected to spend the rest of the year at another foreign destination, as yet undecided.
Prince Harry, who has two more years to complete at Eton College, has now turned his attention to his year off after hearing of Prince William's adventures in South America and Africa.
Friends of Prince Charles, who has a love of Klosters going back more than 30 years, say that he is likely to be supportive of his younger son's proposal. Prince Charles believes it important that his children see the world before settling down to their university studies and embarking on careers.
Prince Charles, however, still has painful memories of his visit to Klosters 13 years ago. He and a group of friends were skiing off piste when there was an avalanche on the slopes. His friend and equerry, Major Hugh Lindsay, was killed and another friend, Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, was seriously injured.
Prince Harry, who is more than 6ft tall, is a keen sportsman, enjoying soccer, rugby, swimming and polo. He is a fine skiier, who can now beat his elder brother in races. One friend described him as "bold and fearless, a speed merchant".
Another said: "Harry is a mad skier, very fast. Whereas William has more style, Harry prefers just to bomb straight down." For the past two years Prince Harry also tried paragliding while staying in Klosters, jumping off a mountain strapped to an instructor and a parachute.
He has been taught well and has picked up a number of tips on his technique from Bruno Sprecher, the Klosters ski guide who was with Prince Charles's party at the time of the 1988 avalanche. Klosters is one of the most sophisticated skiing resorts in Europe, a Swiss farming village with a population of just 4,000 to which the rich and famous return loyally each winter. It is full of Alpine charm and has excellent off-piste skiing.
According to friends of Prince Harry, he has fallen in love with Klosters and its nightlife. He has become friendly with several staff at the Walserhof, and also enjoys drinking – soft drinks, of course - at the bar of the Vereina Hotel and dancing at the Casa Antica nightclub.
He was determined to go to Klosters in April even though his father decided not to go and his brother was travelling in Africa. He eventually went with Tiggy Pettifer (formerly Legge-Bourke) and some schoolfriends.
Management at the Walserhof are known to be privately delighted that Prince Harry wants to spend much of his gap year at the hotel, but have been asked not to discuss it. The hotel is renowned for its discretion.
Herbert Moser, the restaurant manager and hotel spokesman, insisted last week that no job had been settled for Prince Harry at the Walserhof. He added, however: "We know that Harry loves to stay in Klosters and he loves skiing."
Prince Charles first skiied at Klosters more than 30 years ago, originally staying in a private chalet. In recent years he has become friendly with Beat and Gabi Bolliger, the owners of the small, intimate four-star Walserhof, which has 11 bedrooms and a two-star Michelin restaurant.
Yesterday a friend of Prince Charles said: "The Prince of Wales and his sons have always been incredibly well looked after by the people of Klosters who, particularly after the skiing disaster, closed ranks behind the Prince. They have always done everything to make sure that when he goes on holiday he has a proper holiday, a real rest.
Princes William and Harry have enjoyed many happy visits there, and I am not surprised that Harry wants to go back." Another friend of Prince Charles said: "Klosters is a very special place. It is great fun for kids but it also has a real charm. I am sure Harry will be very happy spending time there."
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Super-realist Freud to paint Queen's portrait (Sunday UK Times)
Richard Brooks and Christopher Morgan
THE painter Lucian Freud, who is widely regarded as Britain's greatest living artist, has started work on a portrait of the Queen.
Sittings began late last year in preparation for the golden jubilee in 2002, and are likely to result in one of the most controversial images of the monarch ever produced.
Freud is famed for his powerful - often clinical - realism. He is best known for his female nudes and his work has been described as having a "compelling nastiness". "I'm really only interested in my sitters as animals," he once said.
Freud's portrait of the Queen, commissioned by Buckingham Palace, will be the most significant of her reign, even though she has been painted many times, perhaps most memorably by Pietro Annigoni in 1956.
The artist, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, had previously turned down opportunities to paint the Queen, as he did with requests for Princess Diana and Pope John Paul II.
A final agreement was reached only after many approaches by Lord Fellowes, who as Sir Robert Fellowes was the Queen's private secretary and Princess Diana's brother-in-law. Freud is initially thought to have wanted more than 50 sessions with the Queen, though fewer have now been agreed.
Freud will often work into the small hours on his paintings, though it is not thought that the Queen has been asked to sit for so long. He is, however, a very demanding artist, often wanting dozens of sittings spread over many months or even years. He often works in artificial light.
"I remember I had 36 sittings when Lucian did me," said the Duke of Devonshire, who was painted by his artist friend in the 1950s.
There is a chance that Freud's painting, which will be large and in oils, may never see the light of day.
According to one close friend "he may destroy it if he's not happy with it". The same friend also made it clear that Freud would be unlikely to give any special consideration to the Queen. "A royal will be treated the same as a dustman," he said.
Though Freud has painted many titled people before, he also regularly paints "low-life and ordinary people". He did several of Leigh Bowery, the male model and Soho habitué, and is currently painting two young Irishmen.
"He's incredibly hard-working," said Nigel Jones, who began to write an unauthorised biography of Freud in the mid-1990s, but stopped after getting no co-operation.
He usually paints, said Jones, in a favourite pair of boots. A self-portrait of the artist, Painter Working, Reflection, shows him naked except for the boots.
Freud, who is considered a recluse by some, is gregarious among friends and talks a lot to his sitters. "He chatted non-stop when he did me," said Lady Lambton, who has been painted six times by the artist.
The Queen, too, talks a lot when being painted. "She chats often about what's going on outside the window, like the buses going by or some investiture or royal command performance," said Michael Noakes, who has painted her four times.
The Queen and Freud will inevitably discuss horses while he paints her. It is their main shared interest. "When he did me he went on about Lester Piggott all the time," said the Duke of Devonshire.
His sitters have included Jacob Rothschild, India-Jane Birley, daughter of Lady Annabel Goldsmith, and the actress Jerry Hall when she was heavily pregnant. He did a second portrait of her breast-feeding, but the two fell out when she failed to turn up for a third portrait.
He has a habit of rowing with people, notably with his brother, Sir Clement Freud, the former Liberal MP.
Freud, who is 80 next year, is described by art critic William Feaver as "a painter, not a portrait painter". "Portrait painters are flatterers," said Feaver, who is curating a Freud retrospective at the Tate next year.
Freud's sitters, while clearly pleased to be painted by him, have sometimes discreetly complained about the longevity of their sittings. Bruce Bernard, one of his Soho friends and brother of the writer Jeffrey, once wondered if his sittings "would ever end". However, Bernard, who died last year, added that "climbing the staircase 200 times was for a very good purpose".
Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Portrait Gallery, which currently has three portraits of the Queen on display, has welcomed Freud's painting. "It is entirely appropriate that Britain's greatest living contemporary artist is painting her for her jubilee. It will be fascinating to see how it contributes to royal iconography."
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Charles is guest at Camilla fundraiser (Sunday UK Times)
Lois Rogers
THE Prince of Wales is to accompany his long-term companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, for the first time at a public event hosted by her.
The reception on Tuesday - to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the National Osteoporosis Society at Somerset House in the Strand, London - will be attended by a wide range of Establishment and show business figures. They will include Jerry Hall, Joanna Lumley and Queen Rania of Jordan.
The decision by Prince Charles to attend an event hosted by the charity, of which Parker Bowles is patron, represents a further milestone in their increasingly open displays of togetherness.
Parker Bowles offered her help to the organisation in 1995 after the death of her mother, Rosalynd Shand, from the bone-weakening disease at the age of 73. Her grandmother, Sonia Cubitt, had also been a victim of osteoporosis and Parker Bowles herself is genetically at risk from it.
Sufferers die in great pain from complications caused by the failure of bone fractures to heal.
More than 3m people suffer from it, but if diagnosed early it can be avoided by a combination of diet and hormone replacement therapy, which, by maintaining levels of oestrogen, reduce the chance of bones becoming dangerously brittle.
Parker Bowles, who smoked for many years, is believed to have given up the habit because it increases susceptibility to the disease.
At first, Charles's companion was at pains to keep secret her fundraising work for fear of criticism that she was attempting to assume the mantle of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who worked tirelessly for charity.
Instead she held private fundraising events that raised tens of thousands of pounds for the society.
Linda Edwards, the charity's director, said: "When I asked her if she would become our patron, she looked at me very directly and said, 'Are you sure it would do you any good?' It was a brave decision because she got constant bad publicity."
Tuesday's event is a rerun of a function initially planned for 1997, the year Parker Bowles became the society's patron. It was due to take place that September, but was cancelled two weeks in advance because of Diana's death.
At the time, no final decision had been taken about whether Charles should risk public disapproval by appearing at the event.
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Charles hits out at 'ugly' Holyrood (Sunday UK Times)
Joanne Robertson and Christopher Morgan
THE Prince of Wales has added the Scottish parliament to his list of ugly modern buildings. He believes the Holyrood building casts an unwelcome shadow over the neighbouring Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's official residence in Scotland.
His views are a further blow to the demoralised project, which has been dogged by controversy since its inception three years ago.
Catalan architect Enric Miralles' "upturned boats" design was chosen in July 1998 by a panel chaired by the late first minister, Donald Dewar. It was a bold choice that ruled out the old Royal high school on Calton Hill, the site earmarked as Scotland's parliament when the 1979 referendum unexpectedly rejected devolution.
Since then, architects have been forced to redraft the design because the original drawings failed to anticipate demand for extra office space from ministers, MSPs and civil servants. The upturned boat buildings have now been replaced with three multi-storey office blocks.
Dewar wrote to Prince Charles in January 1998 asking for his views on designing a new parliament building. These were never made public. However, he is believed to have been less than impressed with Miralles' winning design. He is also said to be angry about the burgeoning size of the project, which overlooks one of his favourite royal households.
"He is not very happy at all with the style of the building," said an architectural source close to the prince. "He believes new buildings should fit in with the existing environment, which this one clearly will not. He thinks that it is going to be out of kilter with everything around it, including the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It's essentially about harmony," he said.
MSPs involved in the development of the parliament said they were aware of the prince's unhappiness. "A lot of people are saying he is unhappy about the scale of the buildings," said Lib Dem Donald Gorrie. "I was not surprised to hear that, because the scale of the site is so small and so the only way to build is up."
Margo MacDonald, of the SNP, said: "A lot of people talk to Charles and they say he can be quite forthright about the parliament."
Despite initially costing the building at £40m, ministers were last week forced to write a blank cheque after admitting they could not guarantee completion for less than £230m.
Last night, the Duke of Hamilton, the hereditary keeper of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, said: "One wonders when the hell it's going to stop, financially I mean. I agreed with John Smith's vision when he described the Scottish parliament at Calton Hill. I'm very much in favour of the parliament and I'm not an expert, but the costs are a concern."
The prince has criticised what he sees as a low-brow trend in British architecture. In 1983 he told the Royal Institute of British Architects: "For far too long, it seems to me, some planners and architects have consistently ignored the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people." He later described a proposed extension to the National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle".
Yesterday, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "If the prince wanted to make a public statement he would do so in the appropriate arena."