There are moments in life so seminal that we know history is being made as they pass. The glorious solemnity of the Queen funeral. The tragically premature death of Princess Diana. Even her divorce from Prince Charles which paved the way for Camilla to become our Queen Consort:all of them epochmaking.
Today Jeffrey Archer bestselling author, one-time politician and tireless charity auctioneer is ruminating on them all, recalling the day he chaperoned a disconsolate Diana when she announced she was stepping back from public life a year after she separated from Charles.
It is not so much the recollection of her famous speece calling for time and space, that day that brings a catch to his voice, as its aftermath: the crushing loneliness of the Princess who returned to a solitary supper at Kensington Palace after informing the nation that she would be scaling back her official engagements a clear sign that she would never be Queen . Ater she told me that evening she’d watched TV on her own with a tray of food on her lap, and of course, had I known I’d have said, Come and have supper with us. I said to Mary , I’ll always regret that I didn’t ask her; that she spent that night alone.
And towards the end she just ring up and chat, which was very flattering of course. But the truth is, she was lost .Although Lord Archer of Weston super Mare met the Queen at official and charity events their acquaintance was formal. But he became both confidante and friend to the late Princess .He believes she would have been invited to Her Majesty’s funeral after all, her close friend Sarah, Duchess of York, divorced from Prince Andrew in 1996, took her place in the Abbey behind the senior Royals for the service and he speculates that Diana would have effected a reconciliation between her sons Princes William and Harry.
‘Diana would have been absolutely heartbroken about the rift between the princes, but if anyone could have brought them together it would have been her. There was an inch of cunning about her. She would have found a way .‘She have wanted to help no doubt about that. And of course, her greatest distress would have been that they weren’t friends.’
Like so many of us, Jeffrey was glued to the spectacle of the funeral at his penthouse flat a stone throw from Westminster Abbey and he has views on all the Royal Family. Of Charles, he says The Queen is not an easy act to follow. But I think hell make a good King. Hes had a long time to prepare and the Queen was an ideal mentor.’
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