Sir: I bet most of your growing band of readers
welcomed with relief Lord Char- teris's indiscretions last week: 'The Queen Mother is aware that . . . the Prince and Princess of Wales are going to divorce. She is quite prepared for it and, yes, she can and will withstand the shock . . . Divorce will clear the air . . . There is nothing . . to say the [future] monarch must be happily married.'
What a mature shift from all the harumphing and fury hurled at me by rivals and fawners when, in 1992, I wrote in your columns: 'The only crime against any family — our royal one most of all — is the risking of a happy marriage, not the acknowledg- ment of an unhappy one . . My belief is that this family and this institution can grow in standing if they react as a fallible but lov- ing family to . . . [publication of] facts of a kind that have afflicted virtually every fami- ly in the kingdom, directly or at little dis- tance. People now recognise the family they see . . . this is a new situation, but not nec- essarily a bad one.'
Perhaps, I added later in another organ, Prince Charles 'should divorce'.
A nice crop of rotten eggs came my way in those days. Lord Charteris, by contrast, I have long reckoned to be a jolly good egg. The firm needs him back in full-time ser- vice.
Andrew Knight
88 St George's Square, London SW1
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