Prince William (41 page)

A HOUSEHOLD OF THEIR OWN

The day Prince Harry arrived back from Afghanistan, in March 2008, the media were waiting at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire for the promised interview. The man tasked with overseeing it was Miguel Head, Chief Press Officer at the MoD. As such, he had liaised with Clarence House to organise the media blackout before Harry's deployment.

It was a Saturday morning and, to his surprise, Prince Charles and Prince William appeared at the airfield to welcome Harry home. It was very sweet.

Harry spoke movingly about who the real heroes were, dismissing suggestions that he was one of them. On his incoming flight there were two such heroes, both men comatose for the entire trip, one with an arm and a leg missing, the other having taken shrapnel in the neck. Miguel had never met Harry before so he didn't know his comfort levels, but twenty minutes into the interview, when Harry was asked what was next for him and he started to answer, William, who was sitting to one side during the press conference, turned to Miguel and ran his finger across his throat, to say it was time to end the interview.

Aware that he was supposed to be the one supervising the interview – and there was still a good ten minutes to run – but loath to ignore the heir to the throne, Miguel got to his feet and stood in front of the camera and said, ‘Thank you, the interview's over.' Everyone was very surprised, not least William and Harry. They went off to Clarence House and sent a message later saying how impressed they'd been that they had
asked a press officer to end an interview and he'd actually done it.

A few months later, Miguel received a call from Clarence House, which culminated in an interview with the Princes. They had decided they wanted their own spokesperson and had talked to their father, who had agreed. He doesn't think they remembered him from that day but Paddy and Patrick [Harrison, number two in the press office] did and they tapped him on the shoulder. Their principal focus was inevitably on Charles and Camilla and, because of William and Harry's historically rocky relationship with the media, they wanted someone whose focus would be on them alone.

As one of them says, ‘Harry had gone through a period when he'd been spotted falling in and out of nightclubs a lot and one of the things that both of them got fed up with was that, compared to most other lads of his age, he was almost monk-like. What was happening again and again was, he would go out on a Friday night and admittedly he would have a big night and be up until six in the morning and, of course, he would be drunk – all those pictures speak for themselves – but those pictures taken that night would be repeated for about three weeks, often as different stories, so you were left with the impression, as a reader, that he was out every night. He wasn't at all and he got very fed up with it. They felt they needed someone to put the record straight on things like that and they wanted someone to help them take them through their career, help ensure that the coverage about them was balanced, nothing more than that. I remember them saying this in the interview. They said it didn't have to be positive, they just wanted it to be fair and balanced.'

Miguel joined the team as Assistant Press Secretary in September 2008; four years later, he says the only instruction he has ever had from them is, ‘Please, please, always, always tell the truth.'

He was absolutely astounded that someone not much younger than him should say, “What is the right thing to do here? Let's do it.” Not right as in what's the clever thing, what's going to get us
a good headline; right in the moral sense. There have been a couple of occasions when William has taken the hit for something and won the admiration of everyone in his office. His instincts have always been absolutely spot on'.

‘The first example was when he borrowed the Chinook for that stag party. He could have defended that. There isn't a single pilot who hasn't landed in a wife or girlfriend's field, and it had been cleared at the very highest level. But he thinks it's terribly unfair when other people take the rap for him and will send me to do the very opposite of what everyone else in public life will do – because that's the straightforward and honest thing to do. He is an incredibly moral guy, I barely know one who's more moral than him. His motto to us is, “Do the right thing”: don't ever take a short cut just to get to the right place.

‘He knows he's playing a long game; he's in this job for the rest of his life and doesn't need to get short-term bonus points. He's got enough confidence in his own integrity and character that by doing the right thing he will earn the respect he wants. He takes after his grandmother in that respect, who has played her cards very close to her chest, and she's never put a foot wrong, never taken a short cut either. She's never done anything to court public opinion, nothing populist, always played things incredibly straight, and he sees her life and marriage as a model. He's taken a leaf out of her book.'

In January 2009, just a few months after Miguel had settled in, it was announced that the Queen had ‘graciously agreed to the creation of a joint Household for Prince William and Prince Harry'. It was to be funded, as before, by the Prince of Wales and have offices in St James's Palace, but remain close to their father's Household in Clarence House (the two buildings are in the same complex), and although they had Miguel as their own dedicated Press Secretary, they still came under the umbrella of their father's press office and continued to share other back-room offices like personnel, IT and finance.

The Prince of Wales funds his sons one hundred per cent in their royal lives and takes a keen interest in how they spend his money. They have to seek his approval for all their initiatives – the two private secretaries are in constant touch, and according to a friend, ‘their father gives them stick about every penny. There are constant arguments about money.' [A member of the Household points out that it is the private secretaries who slug it out and says the arguments are never fractious.] He was in no rush to set them up on their own. It was his view that the process should evolve, slowly and naturally, and he allowed their office to grow up within his Household until it reached the stage where their team were doing most things autonomously. At that point the Queen – in whose gift the creation of a Royal Household is – agreed they should have their own.

With it came the announcement that, ‘Sir David Manning, the former British Ambassador to the United States of America, has been appointed by the Queen to a part-time, advisory role with the Princes and the Household.'

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton had a call from the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, asking him over for a chat. The gist of it was that out of the blue the Queen had said she felt that William, moving into the next phase of his life, would benefit from the guidance of the sort of wise old man she'd had as a young Princess. Hers had been Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, known as ‘Boy' Browning, who had given her advice on how to survive in the realm that she would one day inherit. For William, she had identified Sir David, then in his late fifties, whom the Queen had met on her last State visit to America in 2007. He was just back from Washington and was invited to see the Queen – who personally gave him the job.

As he says, ‘The idea was to have the old grey-haired guy who had a bit of experience of government and international relations as William moves on to the national and international stage.'

The small team were at first taken aback; things seemed to be going rather well. Was this some form of criticism, were they failing
to give the Princes the right advice? They were assured this was not the case. They were also nervous, as the Princes were too, about the idea of a British Ambassador coming into their little Household of three. They were afraid things would change.

Now, as one of them says, ‘We don't know how we survived before David came into our office. He knows everybody, he's politically very astute, he has been there and done everything and been through some of the most controversial political decisions of the twentieth century, Iraq and all the rest of it. His advice is incredibly wise and he knows how to advise, and the questions to ask. He's a phenomenal guy, very understated as well and very modest. He's there as a sounding board.

‘Things were hotting up and the Princes were beginning to step onto the national stage and do foreign trips, and it hasn't changed things. It's just added a whole new skill to the support we can give them.'

Having been at the Foreign Office for thirty-six years and knowing the ins and outs of international politics as well as the machinations of Whitehall, David was particularly valuable in Zurich in December 2010, when William was part of England's bid for the 2018 World Cup. He found himself in the company of presidents, including Bill Clinton, and the great and the good from around the world, most of whom David had met many times. He could give William the low-down on personalities based on firsthand knowledge, he could tell him who he could be open with, who to be wary of, alert him to bones of contention between countries, and the subjects it would be diplomatic to mention and those to avoid.

He had also been a very reassuring presence in New Zealand at the beginning of 2010, where William, carrying out his first solo official foreign tour, was under an intense spotlight. It was followed by an unofficial visit to Australia, parts of which had been ravaged by bush fires the year before. The trip was only five days in all, but there are very strong Republican movements in the two countries and political tensions with the indigenous populations of both.

In Wellington, he was given an enthusiastic welcome outside the Supreme Court by Maoris delighted that the grandson of the ‘Great White Heron' had come among them. The welcome included a fearsome
haka
dance, the gift of a Maori cloak or
korowai
made of flax and kiwi feathers, and a
hongi
(a traditional pressing of noses) with four Maori dignitaries. With the cloak over his suit, he began his speech with a concern for the people of Haiti, struck by an earthquake just days before, who were ‘in all our thoughts and prayers'. Of New Zealand, he said, ‘The overwhelming impression I have is of a nation that believes passionately in itself, in the value of democracy, in each other and other peoples, and in the rule of law.' It was, he said, a ‘young, entrepreneurial and forward-looking nation. After all,' he joked, ‘you've even managed to catapult my family into the digital ether. The Queen started tweeting a few months ago and now, thanks to New Zealand, I am being Bebo-d and Facebooked for the first time – rapidly catching up with my grandmother.'

Afterwards, he spent a good half-hour chatting easily to the hundreds of supporters waiting outside to greet him. Some of them were chanting ‘We love Prince William', but they were nearly drowned out by a noisy crowd of Republicans and even noisier civil servants protesting about their pay.

In the afternoon, he took a boat trip to the wildlife reserve on Kapiti Island where he cradled a little-spotted kiwi, abandoned by its mother. As he held the struggling bird, he joked with photographers, ‘My date with a kiwi!' When one of them replied, ‘You look like you are plucking it', the Prince shot back with the comment, ‘That's how rumours start.'

His charm and humour worked its magic in Australia no less than it did in New Zealand. In Sydney, the Aborigines who live in a dismal slum area called the Block in Redfern came out in their thousands to welcome him. Like his mother before him, William hugged babies in hospital wards and spontaneously put his arms around elderly Aboriginal ladies. Putting this visit at the top of the tour was a shrewd piece of programming; the children
loved him, and time and again women were heard to say, ‘He has his mother's heart.'

He also showed he could use a weapon, when he had a go in a live ammunition firing exercise with the 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment at their barracks outside Sydney. He was using an F-88 AuSteyr rifle, which he had never fired before, but he proved himself a formidable shot.

A last-minute addition to the schedule was a visit to a hostel for the homeless, arranged after Kevin Rudd (the Australian Prime Minister) discovered William's interest in working with disadvantaged young people. Four of them did a three-minute rap song and dance for William, which ended in a discussion about his taste in music. ‘Mine is very varied. Bit of rock, bit of Linkin Park [a nu-metal band] and Kanye West [the rock artist].' ‘That's my man,' whooped Austin Anyimba, aged sixteen, clearly impressed with the Royal taste in music. After loud laughter all round, the Prince added: ‘I have said something right then. Quite rappy. I can't do beat box. I normally get the piss taken out of me for my choice of music.'

No day would be complete in Australia without a ‘barbie', and William's was hosted by Kristina Keneally, the first woman Premier of New South Wales, who called him ‘a friend of Australia'. In thanking her he said he had received ‘the most warm welcome ever – not just from the weather.'

Arriving in Melbourne on his final day, he went straight to visit the area near the city where more than two thousand homes had been destroyed in terrifying bush fires in February 2009. Firestorms, fuelled by winds of up to 100 mph, tore through the state of Victoria killing 175 people. Three schools and more than a hundred businesses were destroyed and more than 11,000 farm animals were killed or injured. William listened gravely to the stories of survivors, looked at photographs taken on the day and heard about the reconstruction and recovery programme that was underway. The Premier of Victoria told him that the energy of the fire on ‘Black Saturday' ‘was the equivalent of forty atomic bombs'. Temperatures were as high as 45°C (133°F).

By the time William, Jamie, David, Miguel and the PPOs were back on their scheduled flight home, the newspapers were singing his praises. The pro-Republican Melbourne
Age
newspaper ran the headline ‘All-round Good Egg William Snares Many with his Charm Offensive', observing that the Prince ‘may have done more to set back the Republican cause than anything since the 1999 referendum' – which the Republicans narrowly lost. The
Australian
newspaper declared he had ‘won the hearts of Australians' with his relaxed, unpretentious and endearing manner. Paul Colgan, writing in the
Sydney Daily Telegraph
, said, ‘William is a powerful weapon for the Royals in Australia. You'd be happy to have a beer with him. He has a sense of humour, applies himself to his work, loves sport and enjoys a night on the turps with his brother and his mates.'