Chapter Eighteen ‘Thanking God for the Small Mercies…’ #3
Diana decided to show those who were writing such devastating things about her that she was human, and that she had feelings that could be desperately hurt.
This involved her putting practicality above personal taste and meeting her chief tormentors.
Once, when I told her I had a particularly testing event coming up in my diary, she replied: ‘Count yourself lucky – that’s the same day that I’ve got to have lunch with Piers Morgan… ’
Feeling increasingly suffocated by the media’s assaults, Diana found she had a weapon of nuclear proportions, which could not be controlled by others, but could be deployed by her, for her own benefit: her unique level of celebrity.
Any news organization or journalist would offer her the world in return for nuggets of information from her own lips. She favoured the Daily Mail as her unofficial media outlet – I suspect because that was the newspaper she chose to read herself.
Immediately after her funeral, Lord Rothermere, owner of the media group that included the Mail, revealed how he had frequently championed Diana’s cause: ‘I am, and always have been, an admirer of Diana, Princess of Wales, and [have been] nagging my editors to protect her so far as they could against her powerful enemies.’
She turned to a couple of Rothermere’s journalists, primarily Richard Kay, who were happy to be the mouthpiece of probably the most famous lady in the world. They were given scoops, in return for favourable coverage.
I do not see this as media manipulation so much as a practical decision – an effort to have her voice heard above the cacophony of angry (and, as Rothermere so correctly stated, ‘powerful’) voices in other news organizations that wanted to bring her down.
I had been appalled, the day after Diana died, to hear James Whitaker, the Daily Mirror’s royal correspondent, say, in defence of his colleagues and himself: ‘It’s terrible that this happened, but there was an element of use of the paparazzi and photographers in general that Diana used enormously to her advantage.
She knew exactly how to do it.’[*2] This self-regarding hack, who essentially made his career off Diana’s back, was shamelessly suggesting that she was partially responsible for the circumstances of her death.
Sometimes Diana’s dealings with the press were born of common sense.
In the spring of 1990 Richard Branson offered Diana and her sons use of his private paradise, Necker, one of the British Virgin Islands.
She decided to turn this into a special holiday for all her wider Spencer family and invited our mother, our sisters, me, my wife, her nephews and nieces to enjoy the island with her and her boys.
We were – with the police protection for Diana, William and Harry, and a nanny – a large travelling group. On the first leg of our journey, from London to Antigua, we sat together in an upstairs Business Class cabin.
When Diana learnt that a young girl, aged about seven, was travelling as an unaccompanied minor on the same plane, she invited her into our section for comfort and safety.
It was a typically thoughtful gesture, and Diana checked in on the girl a few times – a smiley and kind presence who could guess how worrying travelling alone at that age might be.
She never lost the instinct for what a child might need or feel.
Equally, during the holiday, Diana insisted that her and her sons’ protection team join the grown-ups from our family for dinner each evening.
There was no awkwardness, as we knew them all well by this stage.
But we were aware that one of their number, Graham Smith, who had protected Diana from the time of her engagement, was battling serious illness.
With Graham bravely determined not to let his condition interfere with the holiday, everyone enjoyed the Caribbean luxury that Necker specializes in.
We bombed around the bays on speedboats, towing the children fast through the waves on giant inflatables as they screamed with excitement.
We scuba-dived and played tennis, while in the evenings we feasted on fish caught that day.
The only problem during this very spoiling family getaway was the press.
The paparazzi and royal reporters, tipped off as to Diana and her boys’ whereabouts, started to converge on Necker. The local police asked the royal protection officers how to deal with the escalating media threat.
Diana decided to offer the press a deal.
She would play on the beach with her sons and some of the rest of our family, if the photographers were contained on board a single boat that would be escorted to within range of the relevant beach.
After half an hour of performing for the photographers, the boat would be steered away from Necker with all aboard promising to leave us alone for the rest of our stay.
It was a sensible solution that worked for everyone. The thirty-minute photo op removed the likelihood of the whole trip being ruined by a frenzied media siege.
If only it had always been possible to control the paparazzi in such a way.
Skip Notes
*1 This is based around a griffin – a mythical beast that is half lion and half eagle.
*2 New York Times – ‘The Press: Tabloids Diana Used Now Loom as Villains’, by Sarah Lyall.