This is why I like Berry's book. She does tell about the good times and the bad times and the ugly times but its done tastefully without denigrating either Charles or Diana. She doesn't reveal any "dirty secrets" and is chock full of amusing anecdotes of every day life around Highgrove.
Not quite.
She tells some harrowing tales of the full scope of their quarreling. What is clear is Diana was a handful. Not sure many men would have survived her, though one did (James Hewitt). Seems the requisite was that she be the very center of attention, what many fault Charles for. Chalk and cheese? Maybe not in all things. Too much alike, in fact, in some respects, to be compatible.
That's just it. Its not a book which is a "tell all" that comes from authors digging up dirt and having sources that "are high up in the palace" and "close to the couple" and whatever else they use and although the book is focused around Charles and Diana's life at Highgrove, there is a lot in the book that gives good insight into just how their lifestyle was, how mischievous William and Harry were and how the royals interacted with their staff and just gives a general look at the life and times of Charles and Diana from a person that lived there. Berry was telling the story from her own perspective and her own experiences.
My understanding (from Berry herself) is that she wrote the book to counter the prevailing stories at the time that Charles was not a good parent. She was specifically writing to set the record straight about that. (She actually admits to being utterly charmed by Diana upon first meeting. In fact, I speculate that Berry was not invited to stay with Charles at Highgrove when the household was finally being broken up because Berry was seen as more Diana's servant than Charles'. Possible.)
Still wrong. She signed a confidentiality agreement and broke to for money. Do you think the book woud have sold all that well had it not been for the Waleses well known marital troubles? IF it was just cute little bits about Wil and H etc.
Actually, by her own account, the book was undertaken to off-set what she saw as a grave disservice to Charles in the national press. Not money. Also, I read somewhere that the book was actually banned in the UK. Is that correct? I assume it can be gotten now (Amazon, Used Books), but in 1995 it was not available in the UK. Is that correct? Anyone know for a certainty?
However the issue is, is she a credible source? I imagine she is, yes, fairly much so. If she didn't take sides, odds are that she's more creidble than other staff who did have one side they favoured, or had been fired/left their jobs and were at outs with Diana.
What makes her credible is that she sees both sides, not that she takes a side. She explains in detail how charming Diana was, and how decent Charles was as an employer. She is also very clear where Diana was a handful. What I found interesting was how she describes Charles, with a temper, yes, but also how decent he really was to servants (a skill-set Diana lacked, unfortunately).
Anyway, one comes away with a sense of a balanced view, but not one shorn of sympathies and antipathies. She had been a teacher prior to that posting, so her even-handedness can be explained, but like a teacher in a conference, she lets us know the unpleasant, too.
BTW, Berry was pilloried in the press at the time for writing the book, and her background was put into question. It is one of the examples of how nasty it got back then.
I've just been rereading 'The Housekeeper's Diary' by Wendy Berry, having clawed it out of the bookcase of a friend who borrowed it a decade ago and 'forgot' to return it. It's amazing how little one retains of the content of such books after not reading them for years and years! I think Mrs Berry is quite balanced.[...]
Charles's consideration for others is recorded, mixed with demands for his staff to go the extra mile to the extent of having to drive 90 miles to Windsor to deliver something he'd forgotten
I feel I need to say something regarding this.
Fact is, if one has the monetary means to have servants, like an assistant (for example) this is exactly the kind of errands one's assistant understands is part of the job. That's why the assistant has been hired.
Having been on both sides of the fence on this one, I do know that being set the task to take a long drive to fetch something (or whatever) is viewed as a welcome 'time-out'. I for one loved being out-and-about.
And while perhaps an extreme 'perk' for the employer (when viewed from a 'have-not' position), it was one of the reasons I was hired as an assistant. I understood that and hardly 'resented' it.
As for the 'other side', when the said employer is handling multiple households, the 'problems' can be very different from someone who has one household to consider. This is really a 'have's' and 'have's not' situation.
Bottom line, these kind of comments just accentuate how different the 'worlds' are between the rich and the not-rich. JMO.
Diana's freezing out of staff for no conceivable reason that they knew, upsetting loyal people like her dresser terribly, the separate arrangements made for everything including meals in those last few years of cohabitation.
These, and other examples, are evidence of poor manners imo. As charming as Diana was with Mrs Berry at the hiring interview, or as charming as Diana was with all the public on her walkabouts, in her conduct in her personal life 'she was no lady', as the saying goes. She exhibited more 'entitlement' than did Charles imo. Charles is more his mother's son than some give him credit for.
The 'lets take this opportunity to read these books by my favourite philosopher so I can enjoy myself and you can be educated and enlightened and learn to share my interests' notion of Charles' was a good indicator of the huge gap between these two. They should never have married.
One can have divergent interests and still be politely respectful of one's spouse's interests. Case in point, I will never attend ComicCon (again) but I understand why it's my husband's interest and why he will forever attend without me.
Yet, I enjoy our evenings together when he returns and regales me with stories. (Best way to 'attend' imo).
BTW Diana told 'us' (the public) long after the fact that she was bored on her honnymoon (pretty crass, if you ask me) and suggested all manner of impolite things about Charles. We do not know (in fact) what she was communicating to Charles at the time. To go by his smiles, my guess is Charles was bamboozled by Diana's duplicity with him.
Last bit, it is my opinion that Charles' so-named 'jealousy' (his public sober manner at the time) was a bit more complex and layered. Diana was likely causing him more substantial concerns than any superficial concern over 'popularity'. In a state of acute animus towards him as husband and father, Diana was raising Charles' heir. Enough in that alone to cause brooding.
There was far more going on against Charles, like the overt ridicule. It's really very odd to read decades later. I'm not convinced Charles would have cared about Diana being cheered had it not come with a contrary attitude about him, often egged on by Diana herself. It was the animus directed at him that was unnerving on some level. Wouldn't you think?
I don't understand all the closed eyes; I think if Diana and Charles had not had a baby so soon, they might have formed a better relationship and might have stuck together. Pure speculation, of course, but if they had grown together, instead of apart, they might still be together.
