get my hands on that pharaonic task, but despite Prince Charles having once broached the subject of professional advise in this respect, contrived imagery was definitely not to the family´s taste. Yet everything to do with the young prince´s regular incursions into press headlines, like the railway sidings affair, was pure smudge and badly done. Had I not felt so compromisingly devoted to a Queen who from those first moments of the early tours, inspired me to feel passionately for the system of government, I would have made a bid for it, but the fear of somehow making the sort of mistake that could earn me disapproval, kept me far from members of her family and particularly from Diana. I say that, even though I knew in my heart , that I could have opened her eyes to realities that could have taught her, like the long suffering Queen Alexandra, how not to mix family with Royal life and still make a go of both. In any case, this genuinely close friend of the Queen and I agreed to differ on the photographic count but she was without doubt totally taken in by Diana´s apparent capability and willingness to toe every line in pursuit of the solid platform on which she had to be set. I had some very disturbing doubts and was not surprised to note the first, alarming cracks in the ceiling. The Royal circuit defies explanation in more ways than one, often seemingly in blatant contradiction to common sense but always moving on to the next and necessary step. Getting emotionally involved in those overwhelmingly theatrical settings, was as easy as tripping on the red carpet, but for some of the surrounding manipulators who were the only ones I could not stomach, anyone who did was a fool. Liking the Royals as genuine people, was, it would seem pure kitch.