...for March 2002

March 31, 2002 -

• The jet carrying the Prince of Wales and Princes William and Harry touched down at RAF Northolt at lunchtime today as they made their way to Windsor to join other members of the Royal Family after the death of the Queen Mother. The three Princes travelled to London together on the same BAe 146 aircraft with the special permission of the Queen. They had left Klosters in Switzerland to fly home early from their skiing holiday. Earlier, they drove out of the Walserhof Hotel's basement car park and set off on the two-hour drive to Zurich airport. Charles, who paid a TV tribute to Princess Margaret when she died earlier this year, was not expected to speak publicly about his grandmother's death until returning to the UK, and is not likely to say anything today. The three princes, travelling in the same blue Audi estate car, were all wearing dark suits. Charles - said to be "completely devastated" by his grandmother's death - waved politely to hotel staff from the front passenger seat as they pulled on to the road. William and Harry sat in the back, while royal aides and bodyguards, and the luggage, were in two grey VW people carriers behind. Normally it is forbidden under royal protocol for the heir to the throne and his eldest son, William, 19, to fly on the same plane. Once at RAF Northolt, in west London, they were travelling straight on to Windsor Castle. The flight brought a sombre and premature end to their annual skiing holiday after two days on the slopes above the Swiss town, Charles's favourite resort. The Prince and his sons had intended to go to an Easter Sunday service at the stone-built 15th century Klosters Evangelical Church today before heading for the slopes. They were informed of the Queen Mother's death last night at the end of a full day's skiing. The Prince of Wales had just returned to the Walserhof Hotel when he was telephoned by the Queen at about 3.30pm UK time, 15 minutes after her 101-year-old mother passed away in her sleep. Charles broke the news to his sons in his hotel room when they returned from the Parsenn slopes, just above Klosters, about half an hour later. The boys spent the evening comforting their father. They snacked rather than eating an evening meal and Charles was said to have eventually managed a restful night. He last saw his grandmother on Thursday morning when he dropped by at Windsor to check how she was before flying to Switzerland. Though frail, her condition was said to have given no indication that he would never see her alive again. The princes' second day of skiing ended with the Prince of Wales returning to his hotel while his sons squeezed in one more run by catching the last cable car back up the mountain. They were in high spirits, racing each other and joking with friends including Harry Legge-Bourke, 29, younger brother of their former nanny Tiggy. Clair Southwell, a friend of the Prince of Wales who was with the boys at the end of their last run, said: "They had had a wonderful day, but were completely exhausted. "It was lovely snow and warm weather and they had not wanted to stop. It had been a great day. "When I spoke to William he was exhausted and tired but was in really good spirits." They were given the bad news about 10 minutes later.

March 30, 2002 -

• The Queen Mother has died, Buckingham Palace has announced. She died "peacefully in her sleep" this afternoon at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, with the Queen at her bedside. A Palace spokesman said: "Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had become increasingly frail in recent weeks following her bad cough and chest infection over Christmas. "Her condition deteriorated this morning and her doctors were called. Queen Elizabeth died peacefully in her sleep at 3.15 this afternoon at Royal Lodge." The Queen Mother's coffin is expected to be moved to the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park tomorrow morning. She was 101. No decision has yet been taken on whether the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family will attend Easter service as planned at St George's Chapel at Windsor tomorrow.
  
  
• The Prince of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry have been left "completely devastated" at the Queen Mother's death. Charles was the first to be told after returning from the slopes at Klosters to his hotel at 4.30pm. William and Harry found out later as they had skied to the last lift of the day. They were told by their father who ushered them into his bedroom at the Walserhof. They are to fly back to England tomorrow from the Swiss resort The Duke of York, who is on holiday in Barbados with the Duchess of York and their children Beatrice and Eugenie, is making arrangements to return home. Other members of the Royal Family were already arriving at Windsor for their traditional Easter gathering when the news broke. Those at Windsor included Viscount Linley and his sister Lady Sarah Chatto, whose mother Princess Margaret died on February 9.

March 29, 2002 -

• Prince Harry has shrugged off glandular fever to join his brother Prince William on the ski slopes in Switzerland. The brothers are enjoying a family holiday with their father the Prince of Wales in their favourite resort of Klosters. It was Harry's first appearance in front of the cameras since he admitted smoking cannabis and drinking under age. Asked how he had settled down after all the publicity, he said: "Fine, thank you." The prince contracted the infection just before the trip, but said on Good Friday he was determined it would not hamper his enjoyment of the week. St James's Palace said the prince had taken doctor's orders and was able to take part in the skiing holiday. The Prince of Wales and his sons were relaxed and jovial as they climbed a small snowy slope and posed for the cameras leaning against a rock against a backdrop of a picturesque Alpine valley. Asked how he was feeling and if the doctors had given him any special instructions, 17-year-old Harry replied: "Just take it easy." Charles chipped in: "He can't do anything unpleasant to his father." Glandular fever comes from a virus transferred by saliva or mucus - giving it the reputation of a "kissing disease" - and can often mean patients are laid low for weeks. The symptoms, which are similar to flu, include extreme tiredness, painful limbs, loss of appetite and swollen glands. The condition varies in its severity and the prince may only have a mild form. If Harry was slightly shy at the photocall, William, wearing jeans and an orange "SOS" canvas jacket, was more confident, asking the ranks of photographers who had climbed the slope: "Are any of you lot going skiing?" Asked if anyone was planning to try snowboarding this year, it was William who replied first, saying: "I'm definitely going to give it a try, but I don't know how long I'll last on it." William, who flew to Switzerland from St Andrews University, was asked how he was finding student life and said: "Fun, very good fun. I'm enjoying it a lot". His 53-year-old father was less enthusiastic about snowboarding. "I tried it and all I did was fall on the old injuries, so I'm not doing it again. I know when I'm too old for something," Charles said. The boys have brought four friends with them on the holiday: Harry Legge-Bourke - the younger brother of their former nanny - and three friends from Eton. The Prince of Wales is being joined by his regular piste companion, Charlie Palmer-Tomkinson, among others. He is a Hampshire landowner and former Olympic skier, who owns a home in Klosters less than 100 yards from the Walserhof Hotel, where the princes are staying. The princes have left their holiday until late in the ski season, mainly because of school and university holidays. There was a fresh snow fall earlier this week, but two Klosters staff had to cover up the patch picked for the photocall, which was melting, before the royal party arrived.
  
  
• He was said to be bored and lonely in his first year at university. But Prince William's interest was very much reignited last night ... as more than a dozen shapely girl students paraded in front of him in their underwear. In fact, his eyes scarcely left the catwalk at a charity fashion show at St Andrews University. William himself failed to set any trends, choosing a conservative dark blazer over an unexceptional shirt. But, ensconced in a VIP front-row seat in the students' union, he was a picture of concentration as the range of saucily scanty lingerie passed by. The prince's interest was returned by the model students, happy to make an impression on the handsome royal who is an international heartthrob. American Jenny Lederer, 18, from Boston, admitted: 'A lot of girls here are like, "I'm here to meet the prince and marry the future king of England" and that's kind of their whole purpose for being here.' She added, slightly smugly: 'I am lucky enough to share my social anthropology lectures with him.' The models included 21-year-old Ana Marciningui, whose father is a former director of the Bank of Brazil. They wore clothes - full outfits as well as underwear - by graduate designers from top fashion schools throughout Europe. There was something for the girls, too, as male students modelled skin-tight shorts. One strutted along the catwalk wearing only a polka dot G- string. The show, expected to raise at least £5,000 for charity, was sponsored by the French designer Yves St Laurent. As well as the fashion parade, students who had forked out £15 for a ticket and £200 for a VIP table were treated to a dazzling light show. Earlier this month, William was said to have retreated into himself at the Scottish university, where he is on a four-year history of art course. 'He needs to throw himself into the social scene a bit more,' said one source - advice the prince appears to have heeded.
  
  

March 21, 2002 -

• Prince William is to be the subject of a coming-of-age-style US TV movie, with the search on for a young British actor to play him. The TV movie is likely to be called Prince William and will be shown on the ABC network in October as part of the channel's Wonderful World of Disney franchise. According to showbiz newspaper the Hollywood Reporter, the storyline for the film, produced by Fox TV Pictures, begins after the death in 1997 in a car crash of William's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. David Madden, the executive vice-president of Fox TV Pictures, admits he was "terrified" when producer Bonnie Raskin first suggested making a movie about the 19-year-old prince. He says he was worried "because anytime you go near royal family or celebrities of that ilk, it terrifies you that you're going to do something that will feel exploitative or just tabloidish or scandal-mongering. "We basically took the tack that we were going to do a true coming-of-age of a kid who is going through, in some ways, all of the things that every kid goes through of dealing with adolescence, the coming of sexuality and dealing with your dad," Mr Madden says. A script for the project has already been written and the movie is set to be directed by Michael Watkins and filmed in the summer in either England or Ireland. The producers and director are now looking for a young British actor to play the prince. Prince William is currently in the first year of an art history degree at St Andrews university in Scotland. Since he started last autumn the prince has been subjected to growing media attention. Last November American teenage magazine Seventeen revealed plans to publish a diary of his time at university after finding an "anonymous source" to report back in a column, entitled William Watch. And soon after William began his studies, controversy erupted over filming at St Andrews by Ardent Productions, his uncle Edward's TV company, apparently in breach of a privacy agreement between St James's Palace and the media. William's mother, Princess Diana, was the subject of a TV movie, the People's Princess, made by Live TV after her death in 1997.
  
  
• The Prince of Wales was in mourning yesterday for the loss of his loyal companion of 18 years, Tigga the Jack Russell. Tigga had been suffering for several months from the cumulative effects of extreme old age; he was put down on Monday night by a vet at Highgrove, the Prince’s Gloucestershire home. In human terms Tigga had lived to the age of 126, longer even than Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who is 101. A St James’s Palace spokeswoman said: “Tigga just died of old age; everything had started to fail. The Prince and his sons are very upset.” The Prince had owned Tigga since acquiring him as a puppy from the Marchioness of Salisbury. His offspring, Pooh, was also a favourite of the Prince until, in 1994, he went missing on the Balmoral estate. Aided by gamekeepers and other estate workers, the Prince spent two months searching for Pooh. A national newspaper offered a £1,000 reward for his recovery and there were suggestions that he had been rustled by Highland dog thieves. He was never found, and was assumed to have died after being trapped down a rabbit burrow. Tigga led a charmed life and enjoyed a degree of celebrity, featuring on the Prince’s Christmas cards along with his equally devoted co-owners, the Princes William and Harry. The family’s 1995 card adopted a Flowerpot Men theme, with Tigga looking on as William, then 13, and Harry, 11, popped their heads out of giant urns in the Highgrove garden. Tigga’s surviving son, Freddy, is owned by Camilla Parker Bowles. There are no immediate plans to replace Tigga, the spokeswoman said. But the estate is not dogless; Widgeon, Prince William’s labrador, awaits his master’s return from St Andrews University.
  
  
• A collection of handwritten letters and cards that Diana, Princess of Wales sent to a former housekeeper at her family home, is expected to fetch up to £15,000 at auction tomorrow. The collection, described by auctioneers as "rather special and unique", is being sold by Maud Pendrey, who worked at Althorp, near Northampton, where the Princess spent her teenage years. It includes nine letters written by her after her marriage to the Prince of Wales in 1981, and 14 Christmas and New Year cards sent between 1981 and 1995. The correspondence will go under the hammer at G A Keys salerooms in Aylsham, Norfolk, at 2pm. Keys's collectables expert Andrew Bullock said yesterday that any complete collection of personal handwritten letters and cards from a member of the Royal Family was special. The fact that the correspondence came from the Princess gave it added value. "Normally when members of the Royal Family sign their names they use a machine called an autopen which copies and reproduces their signature identically," said Mr Bullock. "These are all signed by the Princess and the letters are also in her handwriting. "We start off with cards showing images of Charles and Diana with both of their signatures. As the years go on, the cards show only Diana and her sons and they are signed only by her." Mr Bullock said the correspondence might end up in America, a major market for Diana memorabilia. The first letter is dated Aug 14, 1981, and is a thank-you note for a wedding present. The Princess says she and the Prince of Wales were "touched and delighted" and adds: "The honeymoon was a tremendous success, and we had a glorious time." A letter from Balmoral dated Sept 8, 1982, was attached to a leather-framed signed picture of the Princess and baby William. Diana's note says she is an "extremely proud and lucky mother". She adds: "William has brought us such happiness and contentment, and consequently I cannot wait for masses more." In July 1984, when pregnant with Prince Harry, she wrote a note which joked about how she and Prince Charles had remembered their third wedding anniversary - "unlike some married couples".

March 3, 2002 -

• Prince William wants to quit his studies at St Andrews University. In what one confidant described as a 'wobble', he is said to find life in the quiet Scottish seaside town 'boring'. His father, Prince Charles, and other members of the Royal Family have urged him to 'stick with it' and not abandon his four-year degree in history of art. But the 19-year-old has found it difficult to make friends and settle in his studies. William is understood to have shared his frustrations with the Queen Mother, who helped him through difficult years at Eton following the death of his mother. Yesterday he appeared 450 miles from St Andrews at a race day near Highgrove, Gloucestershire, with both Guy Pelly and James Mulholland, who were recently accused of leading his brother, Harry, astray. It is the third time in four weeks that he has spent the weekend away from the Scottish university, living it up with Pelly, 19, and Mulholland, 24, who are both frowned on by courtiers at St James's Palace. The day at the Beaufort Hunt pointto-point, four miles from Highgrove, underlined what friends describe as his boredom and frustration with the student social life at St Andrews. Sources close to William are worried that, despite attending his lectures, he has not taken to university life. St James's Palace courtiers admit he first had qualms about attending last summer and had to be persuaded to go by his father, who cancelled a holiday because of the crisis at home. Despite overcoming his initial fears, one aide said William's doubts came to a head again over Christmas, but that he was now more reconciled to staying at St Andrews. The Prince regularly travels the 450 miles from Scotland to Gloucestershire on a Friday night, returning to his hall of residence in time for Monday morning lectures. The journey by air takes a minimum of four hours, door to door, and by car, almost eight hours. But the long distances have not dissuaded the Prince from jumping at the chance to go home. The first weekend coincided with the death of his aunt, Princess Margaret, and the second involved a visit to Twickenham to watch a rugby match with Harry and Pelly. Yesterday was a relaxed affair with William laughing, drinking lager and betting on the horses with the two young men who only weeks ago were named and shamed by St James's Palace. It appears the Prince is uninterested by the social scene at St Andrews. He has, according to St James's Palace insiders, kept a deliberately low-profile at university as part of his need for privacy, a desire which became more acute after revelations about Harry's cannabis smoking and alcohol abuse at the Rattlebone Inn near Highgrove. According to a university insider: 'Although he often travels to Highgrove at weekends, he's actually in St Andrews far more than people realise. He's never indulged in lengthy sessions in the local pubs, but he did enjoy living as normal a student life as possible. 'And for the time being he's decided to "ban" himself from the locals.' When he is not at Highgrove, William limits himself to private parties or weekends in Edinburgh with a 'Sloaney' crowd including James Ogilvy, the 37-year-old son of Sir Angus Ogilvy and Princess Alexandra, and his wife Julia, managing director of top Edinburgh jewellers Hamilton and Inches. Last night St James's Palace dismissed rumours that William is about to abandon his university as 'speculation'. A spokesman said: 'Prince William goes to all the lectures and I am not aware of any absence when he should be there. He does have some weekends away but a lot of students do.' William was initially so worried about going to college that Charles cancelled a week's holiday with Camilla Parker Bowles and the King and Queen of Jordan. One acquaintance said: 'We were talking about Scotland and St Andrews and he said part of him really wanted to go but he was nervous about the hassle he could get. He said if it all became too much, he wouldn't be able to stand it, and he'd just walk.' But whatever qualms he may have had about his first year of independent life, he appeared to settle happily into university life as Will Wales when he started in October. Even the antics of Ardent, the television company run by his uncle, the Earl of Wessex, which tried to film him at college, did not unnerve him. And he was soon regarded as just another student by his peers. One said: 'After the first week of celebrity gawping, the other students lost interest. 'He has a large circle of friends and, until recently, he frequently went to the local student bars. He is seen as very gregarious and friendly, chatting to everyone.' William has not joined any of the St Andrews clubs or societies but he has been playing water polo and soccer on Wednesday afternoons and has been seen walking down the High Street in his football socks, boots in hand. A royal insider said: 'People think he is not taking part in university life because he is so low-key and isn't running around with the lads.' That is an activity that the Prince apparently saves for his weekends hundreds of miles away, at the races and rugby with the boys from the Rattlebone Inn.