Nicholas Monson - The Palace Diaries: Twelve Years with HRH Prince Charles

Contents

Sarah Goodall was born in 1964. In 1988, she was employed as a Lady Clerk at St Jamess Palace and received her MVO in 1999. She left the Palace in December 2000 and now works as a freelance secretary.

Nicholas Monson was born in 1955. Author of The Nouveaux Pauvres, he has written for Tatler and Harpers & Queen, and many British newspapers, including the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail. He lives in London.

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Epub ISBN: 9781780574479

Version 1.0

www.mainstreampublishing.com

This edition published, 2007

Copyright Sarah Goodall and Nicholas Monson, 2006

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

MAINSTREAM PUBUSHING COMPANY (EDINBURGH) LTD

7 Albany Street

Edinburgh EH1 3UG

ISBN 9781845962227

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This book is primarily a fictional account based on the life, experiences and recollections of Sarah Goodall while employed by HRH the Prince of Wales. In some cases, names of people and places, dates, sequences or the details of events have been changed for literary purposes and to protect the privacy of others

To my mother, and those friends at the Palace who helped me through the darker days (you know who you are)

The Palace Diaries was written during a difficult time for both authors and would not have happened without the support of a score of people. For their generous financial and moral support, the authors thank Amanda Harling, Christopher Stewart-Moore, John Brennan, Rupert Lewin, Nanzee Soin, John Wellington and Isabelle Gillard. For their time and their generosity in sharing their Royal knowledge, the authors thank Susan Clarke, Christopher Wilson, Adam Helliker and Lady Colin Campbell. For his assistance on pay roll calculations, the authors thank Martin Levin, and for his help in Paris, Anthony Peto. For their diligence in the editing process, the authors thank Ailsa Bathgate and Deborah Warner. For his patience and advice, the authors thank their agent Peter Cox. For their hospitality, friendship and many kindnesses in South Africa, where the book was completed, the authors thank Charles and Lilian Lloys Ellis, Stephen Morris, Li Quan, Ronel Openshaw, Noel and Beth Hunt, Karen Durney, Lawrence McDowell, Richard Procter-Sims and Albert, who looked after us so well.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, wearing a rather becoming Nehru jacket, is greeting me right now. I curtsey. He asks what I want to drink. As if he needs to ask. It is always the same. He proceeds to pour me an extremely stiff gin and tonic and hands it to me. I gaze into his radiant blue eyes...

Suddenly, I am jolted. Damn. I always love that dream.

Right now, our illustrious Prince is being fted in New York. As for me, well, I am sitting on the top deck of the No. 9 bus. It is six oclock and already dark. As we chunter up Piccadilly, I turn my head and spot the distant glimmering lights of St Jamess Palace through the gloom of Green Park. Or are my eyes deceiving me? The thought of the Palace still evokes in me an emotional tremor.

A passenger gets up, leaving his evening paper on the seat. How jolly considerate. I pick it up and glance at the news. It is full of stuff about my former boss, the Prince of Wales, and his wife of six months, the Duchess of Cornwall, and their trip to the United States. This tour is supposed to be about promoting Britains interests. Oh really? Kindly pull the other one. No, this tour is Charles and Camillas big charm offensive to win American hearts. It has all been carefully orchestrated. Moreover, they are taking the advice of the most skilful spin doctors, who are no doubt twisting the arms of compliant journalists.

I never worked directly in the media department of the Palace but, all the same, even I can say that it is probably too much to expect the USA to embrace Camilla when the memory of Princess Diana remains so vivid.

Devotion to the memory of Diana, particularly in the States, still borders on the religious. While many in Britain now have a more balanced view, for others elsewhere it seems she continues to walk on water a martyred saint, no less, whose life and happiness were destroyed by Charless adultery with that woman.

Besides having to overcome the stigma of being the other woman, Camilla has the additional obstacle of competing with Diana in the glamour stakes. It is, of course, unjust to judge people on looks but that is the cruel world for you.

I look at the photographs of the outfits Camilla has been parading in. Not a bad effort, girl, I think. But what did the American press have to say about it, I wonder? Oh dear. Frump Tower, I read, was the headline splashed across the New York Post. The public relations team supporting the Palace evidently has its work cut out.

Still, at least the tone of the coverage here in Britain is a great deal more sympathetic to Camilla than it was before the couple married in April. There was hardly a kind word written or spoken about her. I myself vented spleen, which, astonishingly, became a lead article in a Sunday newspaper. I shared the front page with the Pope, who had died the day before. CAMILLA HAD ME FIRED AS CHARLESS SECRETARY! the headline screamed.

Yes, I certainly got a lot off my chest that day. I imagine it would have quite spoiled the Royal breakfast. But since then, I have been thinking hard and, yes, possibly I was too harsh on Camilla, but at that time my sentiments synchronised with the mood of the nation.

You may rightly ask: why would anyone care about what I, Sarah Goodall, a forty-year-old unknown woman, have to say about the Royal relationship? What authority do I have to comment? And why on earth should my opinions and my story be front-page news? How did it all come about?

In late March, a fortnight before the wedding of Charles and Camilla, I had been having dinner with friends. One of the other guests was a newspaper journalist. When he heard that I had worked at St Jamess Palace for twelve and a half years, and that I believed Camilla had played a role in my downfall, his eyes lit up. Days later, I was interviewed at length and paid a handsome fee. Some thought I was betraying the Prince of Wales. When you have no capital and a tiny income, it is frankly difficult to summon sufficient pride to turn down such an opportunity. I was barely solvent. All the same, I never expected that my story would be trailed on the front page and that my interview would cause such a sensation.