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My own brush with a royal literary crisis came in 1992 — the Queen’s unhappy annus horribilis — when Harry’s mother practically dictated her rather selective laundry list of dirty linen, which became Andrew Morton’s bestselling Diana: Her True Story. Although I was her private secretary, she very considerately kept me in the dark about the stealthy process of getting it written, but I was involved in dealing with the fallout. Poor little Harry was just seven at the time so it will be interesting to see how reliable his recall might be of the traumatic events that became known as ‘the war of the Waleses’.
On a lighter note, I recently described Harry and Meghan’s very vigilant social media supporters, aka the Sussex Squad, as a Praetorian Guard. The Squad has latched on to this enthusiastically, with some members now identifying themselves on Twitter as ‘Praetorian’ and adding their identifying number. I don’t know if this raises me to the status of social media influencer, but I wish they’d at least use Roman numerals.
That would have pleased my very old-school history master back at my Edinburgh alma mater. His world and that of the Sussex Squad Praetorians are about as far apart as Julius Caesar and Jay-Z. They occupy different solar systems of thought, values and knowledge. There must be many of my generation, whose parents fought in the second world war, who struggle to comprehend how our lives accommodate such jarring contrasts. It’s undeniably a privilege, but one that requires daily mental gymnastics. Perhaps the Queen feels the same as she Zooms with her great-grandchildren in Montecito.
The celebrations for Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee next year are a welcome reminder that monarchy operates to a reassuringly distant time horizon. My history master was perhaps trying to teach me and my pimply, slouching classmates something of this wisdom when he declared: ‘History stopped in 1901. Everything since is just current affairs!’ Eventually it dawned on us that 1901 was when Queen Victoria died. Now another glorious royal era is in its golden twilight. Let’s pray it’s a long one, because the passing of the current reign will mark a moment when, once again, history itself will come to a stop.
Of course, Covid has given us a taste of what history stopping might feel like. Now there’s an undeniable sense that life is returning to some kind of normal. Yesterday, turning my gaze to the heavens, I spotted the best sign of recovery yet. Yes! There it was! A giant Airbus A380 airliner, climbing majestically into the blue Virginia sky. A rare bird for more than a year, its return is surely a sign that happy days — and endless airport queues — are here again.
Because you read about prince harry
Also by Patrick Jephson
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