The Housekeeper's Diary

"When it said banned in Britain on the cover I knew it was a book that I had to read. It wasn’t easy to get a copy. I think it may be out of print but eventually I managed to track one down. Wendy Berry was the housekeeper at Highgrove and Kensington Palace for many years and most importantly during the break-up of Charles and Diana’s marriage. I found the book to be really compelling reading. I devoured it within a day. It was full of fascinating colour and really great anecdotes. I particularly like the story about how Diana and Charles tried to keep the pretence of the marriage going as much as they could by pretending they were sharing a marital bed. Diana would leave her earplugs in Charles’s bed. Also Wendy was more than aware that when Charles wasn’t around James Hewitt would visit Highgrove regularly, and although the guest bedroom was made up and he made a big effort to ruffle the sheets it was fairly obvious he hadn’t slept there! Reading this was all very interesting. But she also paints a very vivid picture of the princes’ young lives – and tells how Charles gave them baths and put them to bed. This shows he was a much more hands-on father than many people previously thought. That was interesting to find out. She portrays quite a domestic picture of life at Highgrove and I think there were times when Charles and Diana were happy and the children were happy. They rode their ponies; they loved joining their father in the garden. Of course, Diana was never really a country girl but I still think there were happy times there and the book exposes that just as much as the other things she writes about. No."