My daughters are no strangers to public humiliation because of their mother’s antics.
Let’s just say that my turn on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2012 did not go down as well as I might have hoped, not least because I didn’t tell them I was heading into the jungle in the first place!
It did provide me with some insight into how the sins of the fathers (and mothers!) can impact on the offspring. I’m not proud of the media attention and public reaction that upset my three girls.
So I cannot begin to imagine how, on a far greater scale of distress and humiliation, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are coping with the latest revelations about their father Prince Andrew’s abhorrent behaviour.
Nor did their mother – the ‘Duchess of Excess’ – escape condemnation. Indeed, the Yorks’ dirty linen has been aired and then some in the Daily Mail’s serialisation of acclaimed royal biographer Andrew Lownie’s devastating new book on Prince Andrew.
As this paper reported on Saturday, the princesses are said to be ‘utterly mortified’. They were braced for its release, but the fallout is worse than they expected, and they are allegedly keeping their distance from their father.
It is often said of politicians that when stupidity and arrogance collide, it can be a dangerous combination. With a member of the Royal Family, it’s completely disastrous.
Andrew will forever be remembered as best buddy of convicted paedophile and alleged sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who, Lownie claims, described the prince as a ‘perverted animal’.
I cannot begin to imagine how, on a far greater scale of distress and humiliation, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are coping with the latest revelations about their father Prince Andrew’s abhorrent behaviour, writes Nadine Dorries
Andrew Lownie’s devastating new book on Prince Andrew, serialised in the Daily Mail, has laid bare the scandals surrounding the prince
The 450-page biography, which took four years to research and write – involving hundreds of interviews with royal insiders – is surely the final nail in the coffin of any faint hope Andrew still harboured to inveigle himself back into mainstream royal life.
The final act of dismissal and his eviction – and that of his lodger and ex-wife Fergie – from Royal Lodge in Windsor will surely fall upon the shoulders of Prince William, who I suspect will have very different ideas from his father King Charles about how ‘The Firm’ is run when his turn arrives.
But to return to Beatrice and Eugenie, for whom it is impossible not to have some sympathy. I believe the two princesses can use this latest dip in their family’s reputational fortune as an opportunity – an opportunity to show us what strong, capable and resilient women they are, if only they will seize it.
With the Royal Family stretched thin as never before and still reeling from the cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales, there is plenty of work to be done and useful roles they can play to repay the great privileges they have enjoyed because of their birth.
And it’s not as if there is any shortage of female role models whose example they can emulate: Our late Queen, Princess Anne, the Duchess of Edinburgh, and, of course, Kate herself.
But they need to focus. Glitzy red-carpet celebrity or charity events where they are photographed in expensive designer gowns or on exotic holidays are not the way to win hearts and minds. They are royals, not celebrities or, God help us, social-media influencers. They need to get their heads together and seek wise counsel; to ask the question: ‘How do we redeem the York name?’
The answer is to buckle down to working hard for charities and community projects in the name of the Royal Family, to keep their family life private, and let the public face be one of selfless duty.
Where their father has failed, they must shine twice as bright. Only time will tell if they have the will to take on this challenge. But if they don’t, the tainted and damaged York name will haunt them for ever. I’m very sure neither wants – nor do they deserve – that. It’s over to you, girls.
It’s a tough break for Cat and Pat
Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty announced their separation last month after 12 years of marriage
I’ve met and like Cat Deeley, co-presenter on This Morning, and so when I read her marriage of 12 years was over, I felt nothing but sadness for her and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Patrick Kielty.
Pat has left the family home in London and is back living in the village of Dundrum in County Down, where he grew up.
Family and friends are said to be supporting him through these difficult days. There is no denying how sad and lost he looked in photographs snapped at the weekend.
I am sure that when the cameras are off, it’s just the same for Cat. She and Pat share two sons – Milo, seven, and James, five – and the impact on everyone concerned when a once-loving couple split cannot be overestimated.
The family moved back to the UK from LA in 2020 and, no doubt with high hopes for a new beginning, bought a derelict 1950s house in Hampstead, north London, that required major renovations.
At the same time, Cat was getting to grips with a demanding new job (and the very early starts) on ITV’s flagship morning show while Pat was juggling his time between Dublin, where he presents The Late Late Show on Fridays, and London for his Radio 5 Live show.
They were, as Cat said, like ‘ships that passed in the night’. It’s hard to imagine the pressure on them. Add to that the stress of expensive renovations which, given my experience of such things, were probably progressing at a snail’s pace.
The moral is, if you value your relationship, don’t call in builders.
Eye tests for over-70s drivers are likely to become compulsory under a Labour Road Safety Strategy, despite evidence that it is new and younger drivers who pose the greatest threat. It is yet another example of Labour’s obsession with ‘elf and safety, and I wonder what it will achieve.
Roads seem more dangerous than ever, but I believe that’s down to mobile phones. I know it is illegal to use a hand-held phone when driving or at traffic lights, but that doesn’t stop people. It’s a daily occurrence on country roads for me to have to beep my horn as an oncoming car veers towards me – before I see the driver look up from what is obviously a phone in their hand. I’m not against making roads safer, but why target mostly responsible pensioners when they aren’t the real cause of the increased number of deaths on the road?
Art is my crafty cure
Last week I took an art course with the talented (and very patient) London artist Jonathan Ellis.
I had no idea how therapeutic art is – focusing entirely on a creative activity with no other distractions.
We are all so dominated by the busyness of daily life and bombarded by 24/7 news, that many of us have forgotten the value of creativity and hobbies such as painting, knitting, and crafting. They offer a huge boost to mental health, too.
Hobbies need a bigger platform. It’s time for a revival.
It’s a dreadful year for the harvest and impossible to ignore if you live in the countryside, where fields are full of what look like burnt and dried crops.
This will have a huge impact on food prices. As farmers struggle to survive this Marxist government’s war on landowners, the weather gods have turned against them, too – and we’ll ALL be the poorer for it.
Today’s literary gem
‘It is unfortunate that in most cases when the sins of the father fall on the son it is because unlike God, people refuse to forgive and forget and heap past wrongs upon innocent generations.’
E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes Of A Gadfly
