Dark side of Diana described by ex-aide
A devastating portrait of a wilful and manipulative Princess Diana emerged yesterday from extracts of a book written by her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, printed in the Sunday Times.
Publication of Shadows of a Princess, due to come out in Britain and the US next month, has already been condemned as deplorable by the Queen and the Prince of Wales. But from the extract published yesterday the royal family could take comfort from the fact that the outlines and much of the detail are already well known - and much more damaging to the memory of the princess than to themselves.
That may be of small comfort to Mr Jephson, who, although standing to make a great deal of money, knows he will be cast into outer darkness by the Palace and may be stripped of an honour bestowed on him for his service.
Both the palace, which sought for two years to stop the book being published, and the newspaper which purchased the revelations may feel they could have been much worse. Mr Jephson was the princess's equerry and then private secretary for more than seven years until January 1996. He watched the breakdown of her marriage and was instrumental in handling the divorce.
The author claimed that his book would give a more rounded portrait of the princess than previous publications and that it would be "entirely positive" for her sons, Princes William and Harry. "For them there will be nothing new to learn from this that's harmful and a lot of new stuff that's good," the paper quoted him as saying.
The book claims the princess referred to the Duke of Edinburgh as "Stavros", mocking his Greek roots, and said at one point that her royal jewellery was a reward for "years of purgatory with this f***ing family". The book suggests nevertheless that "a small handful of sugar lumps" could have wooed her back to the royal family. She "did not set out to rebel. What in the end was seen as her disaffection was what she did to compensate for a chronic feeling of rejection".
The book claims that Diana found the family emotionally cold and unfriendly and became increasingly reckless in her behaviour, taking a string of lovers - including one smuggled into Kensington Palace in the boot of her car - and becoming paranoid about non-existent plots to bug her conversations or even assassinate her.
The author claims she told him that the letter from the Queen in 1995, telling the couple to get a divorce following Diana's Panorama interview, was the first letter her mother-in-law had ever sent her.
Mr Jephson says the princess told him she had confronted Camilla Parker-Bowles at a party and asked her to leave Charles alone, but had received a stony response which left her in tears.
The princess's 43-year-old former secretary - originally seconded from the Royal Navy, and now running a public relations consultancy and living in Fulham - divulges Diana's ruthless treatment of her staff and her love of dirty jokes.
He claims she once exulted in accusing Tiggy Legge-Bourke, her sons' nanny, at a party of having had an abortion. Mr Jephson claims she sent him and other staff members hurtful messages by pager.
But he says: "For all the squandered chances, the stupidity, the occasional downright wickedness, there was something heroic about her just as there was something essentially brutal about those gathered against her."
Last night a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "We have said everything we are going to say about this book."
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