Diana in Pursuit of Love

272 Pages·2004·1.76 MB·English

by  Andrew Morton

DIANA
In Pursuit of Love
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

Diana: Her True Story
Diana: Her New Life
Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words
Moi: The Making of an African Statesman
Monica’s Story
Posh & Becks
Madonna
Nine For Nine: The Pennsylvania Mine Rescue Miracle

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
Michael O’Mara Books Limited
9 Lion Yard
Tremadoc Road
London SW4 7NQ
This electronic edition published in 2013
Copyright © 2004 by Andrew Morton
Every reasonable effort has been made to acknowledge all copyright holders. Any errors or omissions that
may have occurred are inadvertent, and anyone with any copyright queries is invited to write to the
publishers, so that a full acknowledgement may be included in subsequent editions of this work.
All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available
this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person
who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The right of Andrew Morton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78243-105-3 in ePub format
ISBN: 978-1-78243-106-0 in Mobipocket format
ISBN: 978-1-84317-084-6 in hardback print format
Designed and typeset by Martin Bristow Jacket photograph: PA Photos
Jacket design: www.glensaville.com
www.mombooks.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION Love Factually
PROLOGUE A Grotesque Tableau
CHAPTER ONE Hard Road to Freedom
CHAPTER TWO The Year of Living Dangerously
CHAPTER THREE The Comfort of Strangers
CHAPTER FOUR Unfinished Business
CHAPTER FIVE In Search of Love
CHAPTER SIX A Princess of the World
CHAPTER SEVEN ‘They Want To Kill Me’
CHAPTER EIGHT Fakes, Forgeries and Secret Tapes
CHAPTER NINE The Long Goodbye
CHAPTER TEN The Crowning of the Queen of Hearts
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Final Odyssey
CHAPTER TWELVE Trials of the Torch Bearers
CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Curse of the Lost Princess
EPILOGUE Passport to Parachinar
Timeline
Bibliography
Index
For Mike
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

O
VER THE YEARS I have come to know some of those in whom Diana, Princess
of Wales confided, and it will be apparent in my narrative that I have had
numerous off-the-record conversations with people close to major events in her
life. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to them for their insights and
advice.
In the eighteen months it has taken to research and write this book I have
enjoyed numerous convivial conversations with many others whose lives were
also touched in some way by the late Princess. My thanks go to: Dickie Arbiter,
LVO; Steven Bartlett; Carolan Brown; Dr James Colthurst; Paul Cooper;
Mohamed Fayed; Debbie Frank; Philip Garvin, CEO Response International;
Geordie Greig; Richard Greene; David Griffin; Robert Heindel; Soheir
Khashoggi; Robert Lacey; Brian Lask; Ken Lennox; Keith Leverton; Thierry
Meresse; Betty Palko; Vivienne Parry; Jean-Marie Pontaut; David Puttnam;
Jenni Rivett; Ian Sparks; Raine, Countess Spencer; Chester Stern; Oonagh
Shanley-Toffolo; Penny Thornton; Stephen Twigg; Matthias Wiessler; Ken
Wharfe, and Hassan Yassin.
My thanks too to my researcher, Lily Williams, for her valiant efforts under
continuous pressure. As ever I owe an immense debt to my editors Dominique
Enright and Toby Buchan, as well as to the rest of the editorial team at Michael
O’Mara Books for their fortitude, steadiness and support, in particular Helen
Cumberbatch, Kate Gribble, Judith Palmer and Chris Maynard. My thanks too to
Martin Bristow for designing the text, to Glen Saville for his jacket design, and
to Andy Armitage for the index. Finally, from the walk along the beach to the
trip down memory lane, Michael O’Mara has been, as he has always been, a
great supporter and witness.
INTRODUCTION

Love Factually
O
NE SATURDAY in March 2004 I was in my study adding the finishing touches
to Chapter Eleven of this book when the front-door bell rang. It was a reporter
from the tabloid Sunday People newspaper. She had been sent to get a quote
from me about a story they were about to print. It concerned the contents of this
book. They had learned, from the usual impeccable sources, that I was going to
reveal in the book the identity of three of Diana’s secret lovers. The actor
Terence Stamp, a rich captain of industry and a British movie heart-throb, who
was in his fifties, were on my list. I flatly denied the story and went back to
work.
The next day I bought the Sunday People newspaper and discovered that the
story occupied the front page and two inside pages with the headlines, ‘Diana
Sex Bombshell’ and ‘Named: Diana’s Three Secret Lovers’ (only one so-called
lover was named). It went on to detail how the ‘besotted’ Princess had launched
an ‘astonishing stalking campaign to woo the three secret lovers’, ‘lovelorn’
Diana bombarding the men with intimate letters. The authority for this story was
my as yet unpublished ‘explosive’ new book. The article went on to suggest how
the wealthy but unnamed captain of industry had consummated his affair with
the Princess at the home of a mutual friend. The newspaper’s source was quoted
as saying, ‘Some authors could be accused of picking names out of a hat but
Morton has pored over thousands of documents and interviewed hundreds of
very well-placed people.’ All very flattering.
By Monday the story, which went round the world, was given a further twist
in the Daily Mail when they described the ‘terrible anguish’ suffered by William
and Harry over this new information. ‘There seems to be no end to it,’ noted a
concerned royal source. Then it was the turn of the columnists to weigh in with
their five-cents’ worth. In the Daily Express Vanessa Feltz was delighted that the
Princess had found ‘tender, considerate romance’ with Terence Stamp, who, she
was sure, would have treated her with the ‘utmost delicacy’. Not to be outdone,
Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell – whose own book Diana’s sons called a
‘cold and overt’ betrayal – joined the commentary. ‘I think it’s disgusting, to be
honest,’ was Burrell’s considered view of my unpublished book. ‘What goes on
between two people behind closed doors should be private. I’ve always
respected people’s private lives and I have never talked about Diana’s love life.
What he is doing is terrible.’
To round off the coverage, the Sunday Times published a full-page profile of
Stamp, who first made his name in the Swinging Sixties and has followed a
distinguished career ever since, not only in the movies but as the author of a
novel and an autobiography.
In consequence of all this media activity, within a matter of days, a large
number of people, in Britain and beyond, had some sort of idea that Diana,
obsessed and lovelorn, had pursued and had had affairs with Terence Stamp and
several other unnamed men.
There was only one problem with the story. It was utterly untrue.
The bizarre episode reminded me of why I returned to the subject of Diana,
Princess of Wales in the first place, some twelve years after my first biography,
Diana: Her True Story, written with her consent and cooperation, was published
in 1992. This latest work has its origins during a walk along St Petersburg beach
in Florida with my publisher Michael O’Mara one morning in November 2002,
when I was promoting a book called Nine For Nine about the rescue of a group
of Pennsylvania miners who had been trapped below ground for three days.
At the time, the trial on charges of theft of Paul Burrell was taking place at the
Old Bailey in London. During TV and radio interviews in America I would be
asked about the miners but also about the significance of the evidence in the
trial. As Mike and I discussed the trial and Diana during our morning stroll it
seemed that the woman we had come to know during our collaboration with her
during the early 1990s was rapidly disappearing from view, her personality
diminishing with every passing year. Listening to the commentary on her life
based on evidence from the trial, it was as though the jigsaw puzzle of her
personality had been scattered – so much had been forgotten but also
exaggerated or distorted. The letters which Prince Philip sent to the Princess
following the publication of my 1992 biography, for instance, were discussed
during the trial and given a quite disproportionate significance. In any case, the
letters had been comprehensively discussed a decade before by myself and