The royals - Kitty Kelley [161]
Charles was more concerned about receiving credit for his own good works. He said he had been the first member of the royal family to give blood, but no one paid attention. “I did this to reassure the country after the AIDS scare caused a drop in blood bank donations, but all the press cared about was Diana’s frock,” he complained to his equerry. “Journalists are creeps—bloody hacks, all of them.”
His equerry realized how much the Prince of Wales longed to be appreciated as a humanitarian. “I wish I were Bob Geldof,” Charles said after the Irish rocker was honored for raising millions for famine relief in Ethiopia.
Eager to please his master, the equerry phoned a reporter and mentioned that the Prince carried a donor card authorizing doctors to use his organs in a lifesaving operation. The reporter wrote the story, but it was barely noticed because Diana had appeared at a benefit the night before wearing a one-shouldered silver-spangled sheath, and her photographs dominated the news coverage.
Days later the dogged equerry called a BBC radio show to say the Prince had been studying the causes of unrest in inner cities. He said Charles had spent a night walking the dark streets of London, visiting shelters and talking to the homeless.
The polo-playing Prince saw himself as a man of the people, but his sister said he was far “too grand” for the role. She pointed out that his staff at Highgrove had to wear specially designed uniforms, including the feathers of the Prince of Wales, and bow every day when they first addressed him. When leaving the room, they usually backed out. His valet of twelve years concurred. “I was successful in knowing him well,” said Stephen Barry, “but I could never forget that he was the master and I the servant.”
Charles did not recognize the irony in preaching fuel conservation while driving a gas-guzzling ten-miles-to-the-gallon Bentley. He described himself as a gentleman farmer who was committed to urban renewal when not presiding over his country estate. Although one of the richest men in the world, he was passionate about the poor. He demonstrated his concern during a two-day visit to the United States: he spent the first day touring the slums of Pittsburgh and the second day playing polo in Palm Beach. He recuperated from both stops by flying to Switzerland to ski.
In England Charles craved a role in the public policy debate. He seized his opportunity in May 1984, when he addressed the Royal Institute of British Architects on their 150th anniversary. The architects expected to be praised, but the Prince of Wales lambasted them as elitists. He said their inhospitable designs ignored the feelings and wishes of ordinary people. He cited as an example the modern glass-and-steel annex proposed for the National Gallery of Art in London. Charles said the design was a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”
His speech made the front pages of Britain’s newspapers, and he felt quite pleased, especially when the proposed plan was canceled. “I’ve fought hard for a role as the Prince of Wales,” he told the editor of the Sunday Telegraph during a private lunch. “I feel I should do and say things in my position that, one hopes, can be a stimulus to the country’s conscience, a bit of a pinprick.” Some architects griped that he was less the first half and more the last half.
“I later felt obliged to challenge his opinion,” said Gordon Graham, former president of the Royal Academy of British Architects. “I did it politely, but I did do it.” Graham said he had experienced no royal repercussions after his speech, but his friends disagreed.
“Nonsense,” said Ian Coulter, an international consultant who once worked for Randolph Churchill. “Gordon Graham gave up his knighthood with that speech. By directly challenging the heir apparent, he tilted at the biggest windmill of them all. If the Sun King turns his back on you, you’re in his shadow. Royalty has patronage and support, and if it’s withdrawn, you’re a dead