By Tim Walker, Mandrake Editor
(Filed: 28/08/2005)
Telegraph
Prince Harry is to give a wide-ranging television interview to mark
his 21st birthday next month to the Sky satellite channel in a move
seen as a calculated snub to the BBC.
The interview is expected to attract record viewers, particularly if
the prince proves willing to discuss his relationship with his 19-
year-old girlfriend Chelsy Davy and the furore over a Nazi uniform
that he wore to a friend's fancy dress party.
The decision to give Sky such a landmark interview is a break with
tradition. Clarence House has previously permitted the BBC and ITN
to take turns at big interviews with the young princes and to pool
the resulting film among all the broadcasting organisations.
"The decision to allow Sky in on the act marks a significant change
of policy which will inevitably be attributed in some quarters to
the Prince of Wales's increasingly obvious sense of frustration with
the BBC," a courtier told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday.
"Sky has been lobbying for a long time to do these interviews but
the staunchly republican views of Sky's owner Rupert Murdoch
scarcely endeared anyone here to their cause.
"This should be seen therefore chiefly as a recognition by Clarence
House that Sky is now a significant player that we treat on equal
terms to the BBC and ITN."
Prince Charles's frustration with the BBC became startlingly
apparent earlier this year when, unaware that a microphone was
turned on during a press conference at Klosters, he described the
BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell as "that awful man".
The corporation's current affairs programme Panorama had also been a
source of annoyance to Prince Charles when it suggested, before his
wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles, that the union would not be legal.
In 2002, Prince Charles let it be known he had been unhappy with the
lack of respect he felt that the corporation had accorded to his
grandmother when it reported her death, in particular the fact that
the presenter Peter Sissons had announced it wearing a burgundy -
rather than a black - tie.
Sky's royal correspondent Katherine Witty - recently appointed in
succession to the veteran reporter Geoff Meade - is likely to
conduct the interview with Prince Harry, who turns 21 on September
15.
The Clarence House courtier suggested that, far from having to be
coaxed into talking about Miss Davy, Prince Harry may well prove
keen to "put the record straight" about her.
"The official line of Clarence House has always been that it does
not comment about Prince Harry's private life, but in fact the
prince wants to talk about it after the huge amount of mostly
scurrilous nonsense that there has been about him and Miss Davy in
the tabloid press," the courtier added.
"He wants to do it more for Miss Davy than for himself as he hopes
that once people know the true situation the journalists who have
been trailing her - and often upsetting her - will let her be."
One Sunday tabloid newspaper stated just before Christmas that
Prince Harry was about to marry Miss Davy and, a few months later,
the same newspaper reported that their relationship was over. The
reality of Prince Harry's year-and-a-half long friendship with Miss
Davy is, the courtier suggested, rather more prosaic.
"They are just two young people who happen to enjoy each other's
company," he said. "Young men and young women tend often to get into
those sort of situations without any dramatic developments for some
time."
Prince Harry has yet to have "detailed discussions" about the
interview with Paddy Harverson, his father's communications
secretary, but it is unlikely that Mr Harverson will insist on
seeing the questions in advance as no suc h request was made of the
BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt when he interviewed Prince
William last year.
When British Sky Broadcasting announced its full year results
earlier this month, it emerged that Europe's largest satellite
television company, which is headed by Mr Murdoch's son James, was
on course to have eight million subscribers by the end of the year.
While Sky will undoubtedly be delighted to have won such a
prestigious interview it should not, perhaps, consider that it now
has a "special relationship" with Clarence House. Mark Bolland, Mr
Harverson's predecessor, revealed earlier this year that the royal
family regards all sections of the media as "the enemy" and that the
problem with Prince Charles was that he never read newspapers or
watched any television news programmes.
Sky's interview with his youngest son may be the exception to that
rule.
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By VIRGINIA WHEELER and GORDON SMART PIE-eyed Prince William leaves a nightclub with girlfriend Kate Middleton after requesting a filthy rap song for her.Normally strait-laced Wills, 23, looked like he could do with some air after he downed vodka and cranberry juice cocktails and Sambuca shots on a boozy night-out. |
Palace aides are grooming William's girlfriend to cope with life in
the media spotlight
By Rebecca English
BARELY 18 months have passed since it emerged that Kate Middleton
had captured the heart of the country's most eligible bachelor.
But already Prince William's girlfriend has had intensive `media
training' with Clarence House officials.
Their decision to instruct Kate who has just returned from a trip
to Balmoral at the personal invitation of the Queen on how to
handle the growing public interest in her is the surest sign so far
of just how serious her royal romance has become.
And it also demonstrates that courtiers have learned from past
mistakes. William's mother frequently complained she was thrown into
the maelstrom of royal life with no guidance.
An important part of Kate's training included how to handle
photographers.
Described as an `acutely sensible and remarkably streetwise' young
woman, she is said to have reacted well to the new pressures on her.
At a horse show, she demonstrated her newfound aplomb by approaching
photographers and chatting to them.
She declined to pose for pictures saying it would set a precedent
but politely asked that once they had taken a few snaps of both her
and her family, could they be left alone.
A source said: `It is quite remarkable how well she has been able to
handle the sudden publicity at her age. She's an absolute credit to
William.'
However, she appeared to be caught off guard
after a night out with William on Thursday and looked less than
happy when photographers caught up with them as they left a London
nightspot at 2am.
The revelation that 23-year-old Kate is being groomed as a potential
princess-in-waiting emerges as a series of never-seen-before
photographs offer an insight into her school life. Although much has
been written about her relationship with the second-in-line to the
throne, Kate's discretion is such that very little is known about
the middle-class Berkshire girl. `Although I still find it difficult
to believe that the girl I once knew has won the heart of a prince,
I honestly believe that William could not have chosen a better
future bride,' her friend Gemma Williamson said this week.
`Catherine as she always liked to be called at school, although
sometimes we jokingly called her Middlebum is as lovely in nature
as she is beautiful, and has no side to her at all.
`Combine that with her sportiness, her sense of loyalty and her
capability for total and utter discretion, she has all the qualities
I can imagine William would want in a girl.'
According to Gemma, Kate was not always the confident young woman
seen chatting with photographers at a horse show.
Indeed, when she arrived at £21,000-a-year Marlborough College from
Downe House, a girls' boarding school in Berkshire, at the age of
14, she was shy and rather insular.
`Catherine arrived suddenly during the middle of the year,' said
Gemma, 23. `Apparently she had been bullied very badly at her
previous school and she certainly looked very thin and pale. She had
very little confidence.'
According to another former classmate, new girls are `rated' by the
senior boys at Marlborough by holding up napkins with marks out of
ten written on them as they come into supper. Apparently Kate only
scored ones and twos.
But even then, Gemma says, it was clear that Kate would yet `bloom'.
`It happened quite suddenly. Catherine came back after the long
summer break the following year an absolute beauty.
`Although she was sporty, Catherine was very feminine too. She
always had a lovely, willowy figure but now she had filled out and
the colour was back in her cheeks.
`She never wore particularly fashionable or revealing clothes just
jeans and jumpers but she had an innate sense of style. I could
see her becoming something of a style-setter like Diana.
`With that adorable, cheeky little grin of hers, she was a totally
different girl and every boy in the school fancied her rotten.'
Boys, according to Gemma, were something of an obsession with the
female pupils at Marlborough. But, although she would gossip about
the ones she `fancied' (according to some, even then Prince William
was at the top of her `wish list'), Kate wasn't like the other
girls.
`Although she had a couple of very innocent "snogs", Catherine never
had a boyfriend while she was at school,' Gemma said.
It is, Gemma believes, this reserve and self-respect that makes Kate
so attractive to William, who has never flaunted his relationships.
`I got the distinct impression that Catherine wanted to save herself
for someone special,' said Gemma. `It was quite an old-fashioned
approach especially at Marlborough where half of the pupils were
already having sex. Not that anyone ever said anything to her,
though.
`That was the amazing thing about Catherine. Despite her incredible
looks, she was such a genuinely nice person that all girls liked her
as much as the boys. In fact, at the end of last term there she was
actually voted "person most likely to be loved by everybody".'
Kate's only vanity while at school according to the 2000 leaver's
year-book was a very teenage obsession with her changing body.
An entry says: `Catherine's perfect looks are renowned, but her
obsessions with her **** are not! She is often found squinting down
her top screaming "they're growing!".' Kate was put in the all-girl
Elmhurst House at Marlborough where her aptitude for sport
particularly hockey and tennis and her artistic talents won her
the admiration of teachers and pupils. Gemma said these achievements
helped Kate come out of her shell. Among her friends were several
with close links to William, although there is no evidence that she
was introduced to the prince before they met at St Andrews
University.
While Gemma concedes that some may have seen the demure teenager as
something of a `goody two-shoes', she insists her friend was far
from boring.
`It's fair to say that Catherine wasn't much of a party animal,' she
said. `Her parents have done a fantastic job bringing her up but
they were also quite strict and have installed Catherine with, what
I would call, a strong "moral compass". A group of us used to sneak
off out to Reading to go out drinking, but she would never join us.
`She used to giggle when we would tell her what we got up to, but it
just wasn't her thing. She was always raising people's spirits and
could be very goofy.'
After leaving Marlborough in 2000, Gemma, who is a sales executive,
and Kate lost touch. But she has no doubt that her old friend would
make a perfect addition to the House of Windsor.
`She is as beautiful on the inside as she out and loyal without
question to her friends,' said Gemma. `Quite frankly, I think the
Royal Family are lucky to have her.'
