Not in Front of the Corgis (5 page)

The late Sir Harry Secombe and his wife Myra knew Princess Margaret through their mutual friend, Peter Sellers. On one occasion, the Secombes were staying at their holiday home in Majorca and were preparing to leave, having packed all their belongings
except for the clothes they intended to wear for the flight home.

Princess Margaret was on vacation nearby with friends and she sent one of her ladies-in-waiting over to invite them to join her for dinner. They immediately unpacked and dressed in their finery, only to find when they arrived, that the Princess and her friends were all in swimsuits. Margaret thought it was hilarious and luckily, Harry, who could see a joke in anything, turned it to his and Myra’s advantage and at one point he went inside, stripped to his shorts and returned wearing just that and his bow tie. Turning to Princess Margaret, he said, ‘Well, it did say, black tie.’ Whereupon she had to admit defeat. Which, to be fair, she did with plenty of grace.

The third most popular person in the employment stakes is the Princess Royal, who is paid £228,000 a year to offset the cost of her office and official duties. The Queen’s only daughter is notorious for her
frugality
, in a family where such a description is regarded as a great compliment. While her brother, Charles, could not survive without the ministrations of nearly a hundred staff, Anne manages with the service of just three: a cook, cleaner and a lady-in-waiting who doubles as office administrator at Gatcombe Park, the Princess’s home in Gloucestershire.

Anne used to employ a butler, who rarely dressed in the traditional garb of tailcoat and striped trousers.
He was usually seen around the place wearing a check shirt and corduroy trousers held up with a frayed belt. He was handy to have around the place when Peter and Zara, Anne’s children were younger, but once they had grown up and left home, she realised he didn’t have too much to do and he was eating and
drinking
more than he was worth so she dispensed with his services. She is able to call on temporary staff when the occasion demands such as a dinner party, when Anne is the perfect hostess and Gatcombe looks every inch a royal residence.

The house is very easy to miss if you haven’t been there before. Situated at the end of a long lane, there is no nameplate to indicate Gatcombe or who lives there. The main house is half a mile along the drive and it suddenly divides into two with a signpost
directing
visitors towards the right. This takes you around the back of the property, past a police post that has been so skilfully built it blends into the surrounding woodland and is barely noticeable. Policemen from the Gloucestershire force man the post 24/7. If you are expected, and all others do not get past the police post, you will be allowed to drive towards the front of the house and park on the gravel.

Gatcombe Park stands in 1,200 acres of superb Gloucestershire countryside. It was built from 1771 to 1774 by Edward Sheppard, a wealthy sheep breeder and wool merchant and the property changed hands many times until, in 1940, it was bought by Samuel Courtauld, a mega-rich textile manufacturer, whose son-in-law was the late Lord (Rab) Butler, a
prominent
Conservative Member of Parliament in the
1950s and 1960s, who rose to Cabinet rank, and was once referred to as the best Prime Minister Britain never had.

Gatcombe hadn’t been lived in for more than ten years and it was in a dilapidated state of repair with no rooms ready to move in to, when Butler suggested that Princess Anne and Mark Phillips might find it
suitable
, mainly because they were looking for somewhere with equestrian facilities.

The price was a bit daunting (originally it was £700,000) and Mark’s army salary of £4,000 a year wouldn’t have covered even the interest payments on the mortgage. Which is when The Queen stepped in and bought it, with a £200,000 reduction on the asking price. It was an astute investment as the estate is now valued at over £5 million.

When the news of the purchase became public there was the expected amount of criticism. Why did two young people need such a property? Neil Kinnock, before he became Leader of the Labour Party and long before he was ennobled as Lord Kinnock, said, ‘I don’t know which is worse – The Queen for being wealthy enough to give it to them, or them [sic] for having the neck to take it.’ (In later years, Neil Kinnock and his wife, Glenys, were overnight guests of The Queen at Windsor Castle and afterwards said they thoroughly enjoyed the experience.)

But as with other property deals involving The Queen, the house was not put in the couple’s name, just in case there was a divorce, which of course, duly happened. Similarly, when Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon divorced, The Queen bought her former
brother-in-law a house in Kensington for around £70,000 (worth an estimated £5 million today). But the property was put in the names of her nephew and niece, Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, the couple’s children. As Lord Snowdon later remarried, and divorced, it was a sensible measure to protect the children’s legacy. The Queen had already taken steps to protect her oldest grandchildren from any possible future financial difficulties from the moment they were born. Peter and Zara Phillips are the
beneficiaries
of large trust funds established on their behalf by Her Majesty. The funds, £1 million each when they were born, have grown through judicious investment, so that today they are worth three times the original amount. Zara and Mike Tindall, the England rugby international she married in July 2011, were able to buy an £800,000 house in Cheltenham, with presumably no problem raising a mortgage, having lived together for some years in a house on the Gatcombe estate, provided for them by Princess Anne. Zara’s equestrian earnings (she is a former World and European
Three-Day
Event Champion) plus lucrative sponsorships and Mike’s six-figure contract with Gloucester, means they are both in the higher tax-paying bracket. Zara’s trustees include two of her mother’s oldest friends, Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles and the former world champion Formula One racing driver, Sir Jackie Stewart, whose business acumen has been one of the main reasons for the trust’s growth. Sir Jackie, and his wife Helen, who is Godmother to Zara, have known the Princess Royal since Jackie shared the Sports Personality of the Year award with Anne in 1971.

Gatcombe Park itself is not as large as it looks in pictures, mainly because of the huge conservatory that was added in 1829, making the place look
enormous
. In reality, it is a fairly modest country mansion. Certainly not a stately home by any means. There are thirty-two rooms in all, with a formal drawing room on the left, as you go in, leading to the Princess’s sitting room, where she likes to work on her speeches and deals with correspondence. On the other side of the hall is the dining room – rarely used as such, and only when a dinner party is held. Otherwise it contains piles of books and magazines, stacked on the table. Beyond the dining room is the study. This is a comfortable retreat with deep armchairs and a television set, a large desk and two telephones. The kitchen is on the ground floor with the bedrooms on the first floor with the master bedroom commanding spectacular views over the valley in front of the house. Above the principal bedrooms is what used to be the nursery suite with its own kitchen and bathrooms. But this is no longer required as the children have long since left home. So now it is available for staff or any visitors who cannot be accommodated on the floor beneath.

Visitors often remark on how informal life appears to be at Gatcombe, but, as one of her former police officers said, appearances can be deceptive and you take the outward signs of informality at your peril if you work there. No one confuses Anne’s apparent friendliness as a sign that one can become familiar. And nobody, even within the family, has ever heard her addressed, or referred to, as ‘Annie’.

Having said that, her staff remain with her for years because, they say, they always know where they are with her. She is not moody or sulky, but neither is she outgoing. They all know that early mornings are not her best time so they keep out of her way and if she is working – which is what happens most days – she may not even return a ‘good morning’ greeting, as her mind is on the programme ahead and she is concentrating.

One way in which her team can recognise if they are part of the inner circle is if she makes a joke at their expense. There was a youngish member of the staff with a receding hairline, and on one occasion they had witnessed something that both amused and slightly shocked her. Turning to him she said, ‘It’s enough to make your hair stand on end.’ Then
looking
up at his balding pate she added, ‘Well, perhaps not in your case.’

She was actually paying him a backhanded
compliment
. If he had been a stranger, or someone new to her, she would not have dreamt of saying something so personal; she has impeccable manners when dealing with outsiders. He took it in the spirit it was intended and they both had a good laugh.

But had the positions been reversed she would certainly not have seen the joke. They all know it doesn’t pay to try and be clever with the boss.

One of her early private secretaries discovered to his cost that it was not the done thing to speak out of turn. During a car journey, he uttered an opinion that she took as a personal criticism. What he said was that he thought he had been in the job long enough and was considering resigning. Taking it as a slight upon
herself, she ignored him for the rest of the journey. He was obviously right to feel he had outstayed his welcome as he resigned straight away – and he is no longer on her Christmas card list.

The lynchpin of the Household at Gatcombe is a lady-in-waiting who actually controls the day-to-day logistics at the country house (Nick Wright, a genial and highly efficient former Royal Navy Captain, is Private Secretary based at Buckingham Palace with a small office staff of five, from where he handles all enquiries regarding the official programme). The lady at Gatcombe, who acts as a personal secretary, is an invaluable conduit as she is able to tell Nick Wright and the other ladies-in-waiting and police officers on duty about the Princess’s state of mind on any
particular
day, so they know in advance how to approach her, and when to keep quiet.

Mark Phillips, the Princess’s first husband was well liked by his wife’s staff. His easy-going, laid-back manner made him a pleasant, undemanding consort and today, since their divorce, he remains on
excellent
terms with everyone. He lives at Aston Farm – leased from The Queen – next door to Gatcombe and still organises commercial shooting parties with the Princess throughout the season. Peter and Zara adore their father; their relationship with their
stepfather
, Tim Laurence, is correct if not entirely cordial and is said to be maintained mainly for the sake of their mother.

Admiral Laurence, who recently retired from the Royal Navy to take up a well-paid position in the private sector, is not held in the highest regard by staff
at Buckingham Palace. He is thought of as a man with ideas way beyond his station and who has also, on occasion, adopted attitudes, not usually found among those born to the purple.

An example of the Princess Royal’s loyalty to her staff occurred when the late Lt Col. Peter Gibbs, who had been her Private Secretary for eighteen years, the longest serving of any of her servants, retired on reaching the mandatory age. Without telling him, she arranged for Col. Gibbs to be received by The Queen on his final day. When he entered Her Majesty’s sitting room he saw a kneeling stool in the centre of the room and imagined it was for someone coming after him. However, The Queen then knighted him for his long and distinguished service and he emerged as Sir Peter Gibbs, KCVO. It was a thoughtful and generous gesture on the Princess’s part and no one was more surprised than Peter himself.

If there is one thing that distinguishes her from her brother Charles, it is her decisiveness. Where Prince Charles has been known to change his mind and his opinions in the blink of an eye, indecisiveness is not a word in Anne’s vocabulary. As one of her private
secretaries
remarked, ‘the difficulty is getting her to change her mind once she’s decided. She may be wrong in some of the decisions she takes but at least they are her own decisions, and not based on the opinions of the last person she has spoken to.’

Her staff sometimes despair of getting her to see their point of view, which is why they tread very
carefully
around her. But they know that if they are blamed for something that is clearly not their fault, they can
rely on her to back them up – which is why she comes so high in the list of popular employers.

Where once her image was that of an
uncooperative
, aggressive and surly young Princess, she has
developed
over the years into a thoroughly dependable, mature woman whose knowledge and professionalism as a working royal is unparalleled. And nobody
appreciates
the Princess Royal more than her parents. To The Queen and Prince Philip she has been a willing and enthusiastic member of ‘The Firm’ for over forty years, and they are delighted that there is no sign of her reducing her commitments in the near future.

The Prince of Wales has the largest Household other than The Queen and also, at Clarence House, the highest turnover of staff, with the majority of the
‘pre-Diana’
servants having left or been quietly ‘let go’, it is hinted at the suggestion of the Duchess of Cornwall.

When Prince Charles comes from an engagement, whether it’s a royal duty in London, or one of his
sporting
activities in the country – fishing and shooting in Scotland, shooting again at Sandringham or riding at his country home in Gloucestershire – he always changes his outfits, dropping on the floor whatever he is wearing at the time.