Gingers vs Windsors: the fight for Diana’s legacy

0:02The Telegraph.

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2:29Welcome to The Royal Tea with me, Camilla Tominey. And me, Hannah Furness. Are we looking at the gingers versus the wind? I knew you were going to say something about the gingers. I kind of am now seeing Harry and Camp Spencer. So they're the gingers because they all are okay charles is a ginger so is harry so that's on one side and then you have got the windsor stroke welses who have a vested interest in protecting this institution from criticism and i think have a vested interest in owning to a degree particularly from william diana's legacy diana is absolutely at the heart of their childhoods their adulthoods their marriages, their upbringings, the emotional connection to this absolutely cannot be overstated.

3:16Hannah, it's been a very busy period in Royal Land, hasn't it? You and I have been running around like headless chickens with the return of the sausages and everything in between. But also, it's a significant anniversary today because it's 29 years since Princess Diana very tragically was killed in a Paris car crash, August the 31st, 1997. I'm just looking back at recent events and then forward to future events and thinking to myself are the prince and princess of wales about to embark on a month of misery and i say that because harry and megan are back in town we know that much how worried would you be if you were william about his uncle earl spencer's forthcoming book well it's like buses isn't it royal news harry's back the spencer book is coming out I don't imagine that the idea of anybody writing a new book about his mother is particularly welcome news for William who let's not forget really remembers the later years of these two boys William and Harry there's a three-year gap between them and William was kind of at the heart of yes these really difficult divorce years her living on her own he heard a lot of what was going on there it is not a particularly happy time for him to relive earl spencer obviously has a totally different perspective yes i don't think any one of them would claim to be the only one who could tell this story but that it's all coming at once and it's all boiling ahead of this 30th anniversary next year which is going to be a big moment it's unbelievable it's 30 years by the way i know as i was embarking on a job at luton airport where i was in promotions trying to flog people baileys and avocar in the middle of summer it was a difficult job I wanted to be on Ray-Bans I wasn't manager though I was quite a good salesperson actually are you going anywhere nice on your holidays and um the news broke very early on that Diana had died and then I went into the airport terminal and travelers were literally in tears I was having to comfort people men and women and it was awful and it's extraordinary that that was 30 years ago when it comes to Charles Spencer obviously everyone will remember the infamous eulogy my sister Diana was hunted and we need to ensure as Spencers that we don't allow the royal family to corrupt these two young men William and Harry so we do have a little bit of a thing I'm gonna just break it down and I don't want you to take offense but how are we looking at the gingers versus the winds this is an HR issue I know it is and I'm sorry I keep on mentioning the color of your hair but when i say the gingers versus the windsors this is how i'm envisaging it because because of that all thought for trip that the sussexes took recently i kind of am now seeing harry and camp spencer so they're the gingers because they all are okay charles is a ginger so is harry does mean i have to take sides i'm not sure you've got your own thing going on with the ginger fraternity of the uk so whatever so you've got kind of like skeptical of royalty and the firm and the men in grey suits and the media critically in this good point because yes earl spencer's no fan of the media not least my old newspaper group the express group because of all of the stories they did about diana the death the inquest and the rest of it so that's on one side and then you have got the windsor stroke waleses who have a vested interest in protecting this institution from criticism and i think have a vested interest in owning to a degree particularly for William Diana's legacy and I'm not sure it will look odd actually I wonder if by that point they're going to just be so separated in the public imagination that it won't be strange to have them side by side so the last few years I was trying to think about this earlier we've had these slight moments of clashes over the Diana Awards there was that one year two years ago I think where um William went in person and Prince Harry did a video message and there was the idea that the winners were kind of taken to a side room for some time to wait for Harry to speak to them.

7:25Was that the message where he was like, the royal family is institutionally racist? He apologised for the world not being in the right place for the Diana. It was a slightly incongruous message to a celebratory award. But it is that message of him against a blank background, which has just resurfaced. Yes, I believe so. And it did beg the question at the time, if this institution is so cruel and nasty and racist, why have you still got your titles? why have you insisted on your children being called prince and princess just putting it out there so this year we will avoid that there's no live in-person diana awards right but there is this bubbling sense and it is already becoming a question and a discussion point of who is going to be the one to talk about it is anybody going to do a documentary one of the previous milestone anniversary i think the bbc did a documentary if not itv one of the mainstream broadcasters where both brothers participated and they talked about their memories a little bit.

8:20This time is a totally different atmosphere. The idea that one will be very publicly talking about their late mother and the other isn't, whichever way around it is, that will feel odd and it will be uncomfortable for the other one. Because William said after the Dyson report into Panorama, the 1997 interview that Princess Diana famously gave, wearing a lot of eyeliner, talking about Camilla being the third person in the marriage and how it was rather crowded. That's obviously subsequently been debunked because we now know that Martin Bashir used extremely nefarious methods in order to secure that interview.

8:55And it was William who, after that report was published, it was William who said, just lay her to rest now. We don't want to be discussing her death any further. and he spoke about her vulnerability at that point and as you say he was at the sharp end because I always see him as the older brother having protected Harry a lot from what was an extremely difficult period in her life I think 95 to death she had emerged from the shadows of the aftermath of the divorce and if you read Tina Brown's book and things she was out you know wanted to relaunch her career and that was the tragedy of when she did die because she had just got through the worst of it and was kind of re-emerging but he was the one who said I don't want her death to be discussed but does that mean he doesn't want her life to be discussed 30 years on because because Harry seems very keen to kind of talk about her charitable legacy and everything she achieved and celebrate her for the icon of the 20th century that she was and William has done that as well you remember there was a Mother's Day a few years ago where the Wales children or Cambridge children as they were then did their cars to granny diana so it's not as if he shies away from her life and her legacy and talking about her there is some nuance though in how in their memories of her and of that period of life so william in that statement after the bashear investigation talked about his mother's paranoia during the you know how it was fueled by things like this william believes that she wasn't sorry harry believes that she wasn't paranoid and that she was just right to suspect that all these things were going on there they remember some things differently and it's very complicated harry as we know is very black and white about the media and their role in this william i think has a slightly more nuanced understanding that you know sometimes she was calling the press sometimes she was using the press to her own ends or at least trying to even if that was misguided um she was trying her best to control that situation and it wasn't quite as clear-cut as harry thinks it was when it comes down to it you'll remember from spare Harry said you know their key word if they ever wanted to get through to one another in the heat of the moment was that they would swear on mummy's life.

11:08Diana is absolutely at the heart of their childhoods, their adulthoods, their marriages, their upbringings. The emotional connection to this absolutely cannot be overstated and the idea that they're not going to be doing it together and on the same page will be very difficult for the public who have watched them walking behind the coffin so famously and feel this like emotional attachment to them as Diana's sons does that mean they need to have some pretend reconciliation when they're very far from that behind the scenes no it doesn't no walking behind the coffin now does seem to have been a mistake I think I mean you wouldn't do that you wouldn't this stuff is of its era it's 30 years ago the media landscape was different you know the idea when you look back that the queen was having to justify not parading the boys in front of the public yes the idea that that would ever happen that any newspaper or any member of the public would call for children to be brought out show us you care man she was so vindicated after she addressed the public both as your queen and as a grandmother i've always said that was probably one of the most seminal and important speeches she ever gave because it also showed I've listened I'm it was a one time she did explain I've listened I've taken note of what you said but we're protecting two young men here uh two boys at the time why is Charles Spencer writing let's just look at what he said about why he's bringing this book out because he has obviously had so many interview bids over the course of the years and he was instrumental by the way we must point this out as diana's brother in exposing bashear yes and exposing the tactics that we use to secure this interview and it included things like false invoices making out as if some of the people very close to diana were literally selling stories about her and we have interviewed previously on the daily tea and i do recommend you watch it patrick jeffson who was her private secretary who fell out with her but didn't know why and didn't realise that behind his back it was being suggested that he was betraying her and the whole thing was a mess and Spencer was absolutely instrumental in kind of blowing apart the background to Panorama.

13:25He's now saying, with the 30th anniversary of Diana's tragic death on the skyline, I've been inundated yet again with requests for interviews about my sister. This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time. The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother's perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral. As with my eulogy, I want to speak on Diana's behalf and do so in an openly positive way.

13:56I hope this book will be of interest to the many who still cherish the memory of Diana when she was alive, and I would be delighted if those too young to remember her in her heyday feel, after reading this that they get who she really was. A one-off dynamic character full of love, charisma and self-doubt who gave life a hell of a go and left the world a far better place despite exiting the stage while still so young. 36. Again, that blows my mind.

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17:08I'm one of the people in the kind of very pro-Diana camp. I grew up with her. I loved her. My mother tried to imitate her. Like literally when Diana had a haircut, my mum would go and have a haircut. But you had little postcards of her and stuff, like not in a weird royal fanaticist kind of, I've got all of the china, but just she really loved Diana. I mean, most people did. Diana and Fergie at Live Aid. My God, just iconic. So fair enough for the brother to be writing this, but even reading that and reminding the public of the eulogy, if I were the king and queen, particularly Camilla, and I'd be mindful of how the crown depicted us both yes I'd be worried yes if you take that on first reading it sounds wonderful doesn't it I mean he will have insight and memories that nobody else has apart from their sisters of course um and he can give you know love charisma wonderful stuff but yes pointing out the eulogy specifically and when you look at it with the backdrop of he has been spending time with Harry it does feel like there's a bit of an alliance there probably I mean, you'd like to think that Harry has given his approval for El Spencer to write a book about his mother behind the scenes, or at least he's aware of it.

18:21It does beg the question, yes, what is going to be in it? What is the viewpoint? What is the argument for a new generation who wasn't there at the time? I think if you were there at the time, you maybe have an appreciation of both sides of the story, as it were. The media is never going to come out of this well, rightly so in most cases. 30 years on I should think that the public appetite is more hearing about this woman that everybody wants to know and love rather than rehashing the war of the waleses but like for Camilla I mean I appreciate again there are some people who will never forgive her who just don't like her think that she was public enemy number one back in the day and all the rest of it I obviously understand as you do that her image has been much rehabilitated.

19:11I don't know if we can start describing her as a national treasure, but I mean, I think a lot of people have grown in their respect for her because of her stalwart support of her husband and this notion that deep down they were deeply in love, they weren't really allowed to marry, and it was all just very royal and ridiculous, and if the path of true love had run more smoothly, none of this would have happened, but then without Charles and Diana, you don't have Harry and William and all the rest of it. But it's difficult, isn't it? I mean, she must be a pretty magnanimous person if she's the one who has said to her husband, the king as Harry's father, listen, your son has said some dreadful things about me in his book and beyond, but you've had cancer and they're coming back to Britain and if you want to meet up with him and have a cup of tea, I'll be there and I'll support it.

20:01And then meanwhile, oh great, your former brother-in-law is now going to start writing a book that's going to be really uncomfortable for me as well but okay yeah I'll wear that too there's been massive generational change hasn't there I think I was at primary school when Diana died and I do remember it but I wasn't working at the time obviously and I think for my generation and younger particularly with the crown actually recently we've come into this world as you say where Camilla and Charles were the actual love story here and life got in the way that that it should have been them and I think this this probably will serve as a as a reminder to take us back once again she has weathered a lot over the years she's never said anything about it you know there's that apocryphal tale about being pelted with bread rolls at a supermarket which never actually happened but was so believable at the time because she was I think she was described as the most hated woman in Britain at one point yes we're a million miles from that now the public may not love her in the way they love Diana, but they understand the importance that she has to the king.

21:05And I think people feel quite warmly towards her. But weirdly, Harry was selective in his memory of all that, wasn't he? Because if you're going to have a grow at the press for being intrusive and extremely critical of your own wife, then at least recognise that in your father's wife. Recognise that actually comparatively to some of the stories that were told about Meghan, the person who's really really really been attacked by the media as you say it was literally on a front page public enemy number one wasn't it it was on a front page of a newspaper wasn't quite like that with megan notwithstanding someone comfortable headlines about bridezilla behavior and avocados or whatever the hell it was um got to take the rough with the smooth so what do do we think summits are being held between king queen prince and princess of wales like how are we going to handle the next few weeks yes so everybody i've spoken to about barmoral almost opens the conversation with it's not a summit oh so yeah of course they're all in barmoral in the scottish highlands having a lovely summer holiday together do we believe that the entire working rule family and the ones that are still in the fold are at bar moral and they're not having a little chat about harry and megan coming back to britain of course of course they are mike tindall's opened a sweepstake on which acting job she's gonna take horribly well no it wouldn't surprise me that's right you know just remember pure you know gossip perspective her appearing on strictly yeah exactly which zara and mike really love apparently so does camilla of course good point yes of course they're discussing it they're a family of course they are I think the idea that there's a sort of Sussex War Command is possibly far from the mark.

22:48Sussex War Room. They're all in a situation room. OK, they've landed. Yeah, fracking vehicles. Somebody described it to me as, look, this is unexpected to most people that they're moving back to Britain. It makes things more complicated, but it's not a crisis that 2020 was. You know, the idea that working members of the royal family were going to up sticks, sack off their duty and go and earn money elsewhere was a huge problem for the monarchy in a constitutional sense how on earth were they going to deal with it that required summits then moving back to britain is interesting it might be challenging you might find you know we're already talking about is there going to be a rival court i'm not quite sure that will prove true but i think there's a sense that they there's no half in half out they repeat the line they're going to stick to the terms of the Sandringham summit and they just go on I think the Sussexes now unless things change drastically they're incredibly entertaining we all love talking about them well not everyone does we do get very many messages saying stop it now I'm not interested in this couple although often it's the at the end of articles where the person who's complaining about it being a non-story has read the entire story and taken the time to comment and to email its author people even if they're not interested everyone's always interested in a bit of royal drama is all I'm going to say I would say there's a massive distinction between are the Sussexes a threat to the royal family as an institution?

24:09No. Are they a threat to their headlines and the airtime given to them on daytime TV? Yes. Does the latter matter? Not really in the long run. So we wait with bated breath for the Spencer book, for the next Sussex sighting. And by the way, can I just throw this in the mix really quickly to conclude? Couldn't Megan write a book? Yes. She couldn't write a memoir. there are suspicions back here among some quarters that part of the reason for coming back is to just get some face time back in Britain pick up a few bits here and there to update a future memoir this is all very cynical but in the same way that people think they're going to be doing a documentary or Harry's going to do a Diana anniversary Netflix show the idea that these conversations are happening there's such cynicism about motivations here that that says something for the position they are in at the moment.

25:00Sure. And also as the Sussexes start to grapple the prospect of their new school run next week, we should make the point that the Waleses are rather distracted because Prince George starts at Eton. So they've got some stuff going on. And they've got their whole programme. You know, they're back to work as usual in autumn. There are tours coming up. There are causes coming up. They, as it stands, the Waleses are just going to carry on with their engagements. They'll get George to Eton. They'll get to India on tour in the autumn. and we'll see what happens elsewhere. Do you know why I'm smiling?

25:32Why? Because it's lots of tea for the royal tea, isn't it? Hannah, you and I, in perfect harmony, discussing royal matters. So we will be back with the next instalment of this family drama at some point, probably next week. But for now, Hannah Finesse, thank you very much indeed.

26:00Thank you.

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