Free On Duty With the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Secretary by Dickie Arbiter

lampooned from time to time for asking seemingly bland questions like ‘where do you come from?’ or ‘have you been waiting long?’ But what else is she to do? When faced with silence someone has to break the ice, after all. The Queen knows full well from experience that if she starts a conversation, people won’t feel so intimidated around her.
    The only obligatory rule is that, in the first instance, one is to address the Queen as ‘Your Majesty’. Thereafter it is permissible to call her ‘Ma’am’ (rhyming with jam). Other members of the Royal Family – male and female – are firstly referred to as ‘Your Royal Highness’ and thereafter as Sir or Ma’am, as well.
    Nothing officially changed when Lady Diana Spencer became the Princess of Wales, but there was a sense with the populous that she did things differently – that she was connected to the regular folk in a way unlike those born royal. Whether there was any truth to that is difficult to say. I’m tempted to suggest that it was as much about her youth and beauty as anything, but there was no doubt that she had a way of connecting that felt fresh, and unquestionably groundbreaking for the period.
    Both as a mother and an official member of the Royal Family, Diana had seen and experienced more than most young women her age. Whatever the Waleses maritalsituation was behind closed doors, in public she was a consummate professional, working hard at the complex job life had landed her. Taking on the challenges of touring seemed second nature to her, which I was now witnessing first hand.
    If AIDS patients were seen as modern-day lepers, then here in Indonesia were the real thing. Anyone not medically minded could have been forgiven for accepting the age-old folklore about the risk of getting too close to them physically. As ever, Diana strode onto the ward without a second thought. She would sit among the patients, shaking hands and holding stumps where hands had once been.
    She was always keen to get close to those she was visiting, often chatting to people at length with genuine interest. It was a gesture which greatly pleased both the Indonesian officials present, as well as The Leprosy Mission back in the UK – a charity for which the Princess subsequently became patron.
    As was the case with Diana’s visit to AIDS patients at Middlesex Hospital three years prior, pictures conveyed a message more powerfully than words ever could.

CHAPTER 6
An Iron Curtain Call
    May 1990
    T he spring of 1990 saw another royal first, as the Prince and Princess of Wales made their way east for the first official royal visit to Hungary. A former Warsaw Pact country, Hungary was undergoing a time of great political change. The first democratic elections had been held just a month prior. It would be a very different place to that which the Duke of Edinburgh had visited in 1978 and 1984, to compete in the World Carriage Driving Championships.
    I had been to a number of countries on the European continent, but never to a communist – or even former communist – country. I knew it would be a fascinating glimpse into a part of the world that had previously been a mystery to the west. It was also another opportunity for the Princess to demonstrate what a positive asset she had become to ‘the firm’.
    President-elect Árpád Göncz and his visibly nervous wife Maria met Charles and Diana upon their arrivalin Budapest. As the Prince inspected the honour guard alongside the President, I noted that the Princess had also sensed Mrs Göncz unease. From my position next to the press pen I watched as Diana, in an unprecedented move for a member of the Royal Family, took Mrs Göncz’s hand, and continued to hold it as the two women walked down the red carpet.
    She was without question becoming a star.
    *
    My own ambitions for stardom began early. I had caught the acting bug at prep school where, due to my diminutive stature and my slightly ‘pretty boy’ looks, I was regularly