‘di -- President Of Australia!’

[Guest Tim]

‘DI -- PRESIDENT OF AUSTRALIA!’

 

By Desmond Zwar

 

Britons living all over Australia sat fascinated before their television sets to get a glimpse of the real Princess Diana; the living , speaking person from the fairy-tale that didn’t ‘end happily ever after.’

 

While relatives in the UK watched Princess Di in their living rooms late at night, the Panorama telecast was lighting up television sets in an Australia that was getting ready to go to work, and the kids off to school.

 

And when she admitted, wistfully, sad-eyed, that early in her marriage to Prince Charles she found herself bewildered in Alice Springs, it touched a chord. ‘We did a walkabout,’ Diana recalled, ‘and I said to my husband: "What do we do now?" And he said: "Go over to the other side and speak to them." I said: "I can’t." And he said: "Well, you’ve got to do it." And that practically finished me off there and then.’

 

She went back to the hotel room in the Red Centre "and had to sort myself out."

 

Reg Gifford, ex-prison officer, painter and decorator and migrant of 28 years, is publicist for a Queensland "Downunder Club". He watched and said: ‘I think the girl was put in the wrong role. She accepted a job she just wasn’t suited for. She probably took on more before she realised what was happening to her.

 

‘I think she is a terrific person; a nice mum. But not suitable to ever be Queen. I think she felt sorry for herself and found it difficult to be fair to both sides - herself and Charles. I thought she was being honest, but who’s to know?

 

‘She just sounded like a young girl out of her depth. I liken the situation to when the Queen was made queen. The difference was that she could cope with it all; could cope with the pressures. She was strong enough to get on with the job. It’s probably all about breeding and training.

 

‘One of Australia’s best-known radio commentators has just said: "Fancy going to bed every night with that wingeing Pom?" That is an unfair criticism and I don’t like his attitude.

 

‘I don’t know what such an interview will do to the Royal Family, but I think it’s going to leave the country a bit sad. I am a royalist and I have no doubt the monarchy will go on. William will be King one day; I don’t know about Charles. A lot of families, we must remember, go through the same sort of things that they have done and they survive. But it has thrown them off their pedestal.’

 

Ms. Sheila Scotter, AM, MBE, the English rose who has for many years been Australia’s high priestess of fashion, said: ‘I think she was absolutely fabulous. I couldn’t believe she was going to be so good. I was a bit sceptical about things to start with because of all the pre-publicity. I thought it was going to be a publicity stunt.

 

‘She had manners; she looked the guy straight in the eye and she answered honestly, thinking before speaking. She never said anything really nasty about Charles; in fact she said she admired the honesty of somebody in his position admitting adultery. And she was honest enough to admit her own adultery with James Hewitt.’

 

(Q: Were you unfaithful? A: Yes. I adored him. I was in love with him.)

 

‘Charles,’ said Ms Scotter, was ‘a modern Royal in his thinking; intelligent, with lots of good ideas; and caring. I think they would have made a fabulous team, but nobody helped her in the days when she desperately needed help.

 

‘I would like her to come out and be President of this country. She says she would like to be an ambassador for Britain. She could come out for three years and be president so we don’t have to have a politician, and the country could make its transition to inevitably becoming a republic. The boys could go to Geelong Grammar after Eton, as Charles did.

 

‘She would be a fantastic person to have in the role.’

 

Colonel Reg Glanvill, ex-Gurkha commander, who has been in Australia since 1964, and is President of the Australia-Britain Society on the Gold Coast, said: ‘The important thing to realise is, that the British Monarchy and the Constitution are bigger than people. The behaviour of both the parties has not been the best. I don’t think that either of them are really up to the task of what lies in front of them, by that very behaviour; behaviour that has been going on in Royal circles for about 800 years, we all know that. But you do not wash your dirty linen in public.

 

‘I had dinner last June with the Princess Royale and I believe the real answer to the situation is that the Constitution should be amended and that when the Queen dies, the Princess Royale should be appointed Princess Regent until William is old enough to become king of England. She is a very intelligent, charismatic, sensitive woman who is regal in every sense of the word.’