Like a vision from a Botticelli painting, Princess Diana swept through New Zealand 40 years ago, charming sceptics and winning over a new generation of royalists. Jane Phare recalls some of the behind-the-scenes antics of the 1983 royal tour of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
She arrived in April, wafting Penhaligon’s Bluebell perfume and leaving a trail of smitten fans in her wake. Here was “Shy Di”, a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, on her first (and only) visit to New Zealand, causing a media frenzy and reducing those who met her to speechless tears.
This was the early 80s, before online shopping and global images gave us easy access to all things glamour. Diana brought that with her in trunk-loads - shimmering ball gowns, glittering royal jewellery and dazzling tiaras. Her style was Catherine Walker tailored smartness and John Boyd hats during the day, and the Emanuels’ frou-frou and flounces at night.
I couldn’t believe my luck when, as a young reporter for the Herald, I was assigned to follow the royal tour for two weeks. But it turned out royal tours aren’t all that glamorous. They largely involve long hours, skipped meals and a knack for making an at-times boring itinerary seem interesting. It was exhausting. The royal couple had to do the same, with a smile.
When we followed the royals out of Auckland, the media sat on metal benches on a roaring Air Force Hercules. We eyed the single toilet hanging off a wall and hung on. Condensation dripped relentlessly on to my 80s perm until I opened my umbrella.
But still, there were glamorous moments, like attending the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Coppelia at the St James in Auckland where tickets in the circle, near the royal couple, were snapped up for $100 - big money 40 years ago. The bells of St Matthew-in-the-City pealed for 43 minutes to welcome the couple as they travelled into town for the ballet.
In Wellington, we were told no media would be allowed into the state banquet at Parliament, so a last-minute media ballot which won me a seat left me in a panic. The banquet was strictly black-tie, I was told. In those days that meant a long dress for women.
There was no time for shopping, only a quick phone call to Auckland. My husband dashed home from work, found my long dress, evening shoes and jewellery, and drove to Auckland Airport in time for a flight to Wellington that afternoon. So I did go to the ball.
We stood as a fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of the royals, Diana in an ice-blue chiffon gown designed by Elizabeth and David Emanuel, the wedding dress designers who gave new meaning to the word creases. Topping her blonde hairdo was the Spencer tiara but she was far from overdressed in a room full of satin, furs, jewels and rows of medals.
We listened as Prince Charles thanked New Zealand for its support during the Falklands War and for miles of wedding-present carpet. We listened as the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, and the leader of the Opposition, David Lange, spoke. But we watched her. Like the rest of us, Princess Diana ate her way through a menu that struggled to get out of the 70s - avocado and prawn cocktail, creme of chicken and pea soup, fillet of beef nicoise and vegetables, followed by strawberries Romanoff.
A noise from up in the balcony opposite the head table startled the royal couple and as Diana looked up, she dropped a strawberry on the ice-blue chiffon. Photographers had snuck in and were trying to take photos.
It was a constant tug-of-war during these royal tours – the Palace trying to give the public what they wanted - a clear view of the royal couple - and what the press wanted - a clear shot of the royal couple.
Controlling the ‘rat pack’
Trying in vain to keep the British “rat pack” - the snappers and scribblers who doggedly followed the royals around the world – and local media under control was Internal Affairs’ media liaison officer Dick Butler. He’d tie a long rope to a fixed object and instruct us to stay behind it. But the rat pack simply snipped the rope and got on with it, leaving Butler to wonder why his end had gone limp.
At Waitangi, the royal couple took a historic ride in a waka (described then as a “giant Māori war canoe”), leaving the press pack behind on the shore. But a British photographer, not to be outdone, persuaded a young Māori woman to take photos on a small Instamatic camera he gave her. When Charles and Diana asked what she was doing, she realised from their exchanged look they weren’t happy.
Later on, we were called together in the lobby of an Auckland hotel while Prince Charles’ press secretary Victor Chapman thundered over us. Even though we had not planted the camera, we bowed our heads in collective shame as we were told the young woman had burst into tears when she realised she had been set up.
The likes of Chapman and Butler had their work cut out dealing with everyday dramas, much of it out of their control.
It bucketed down in Auckland and elsewhere. Of course it did. Diana’s heels sank in the mud at Lake Pupuke, red dye ran down the faces of the marching girls from their feathered headgear and one of the Rolls-Royces conked out (that made news back in Fleet St).
The sugar bowls and milk jugs at a Government House garden party filled with water, and sodden band members emptied out their trumpets and played Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.
Activitist Te Ringa Mangu (Dun) Mihaka bared his buttocks as the royal couple’s car left Wellington Airport; a man threw red paint at the Rolls’ windscreen as the Prince and Princess arrived at the farewell banquet at the Sheraton in Auckland. An hour earlier, police had closed Grafton Bridge while shattered glass, deliberately scattered on the royal route, was cleared.
And the photocall with Prince Edward, then a tutor at Wanganui Collegiate, didn’t go at all well. Known for his dislike of the media, he just would not play ball. Clad in a feathered Māori cloak, Prince Edward didn’t shake his brother’s hand, or kiss or shake hands with his sister-in-law, and turned his back on the line of photographers.
And then there was Andrew Krukziener’s prank. Then an 18-year-old student, Krukziener and three mates, one of whom was a Prince Edward look-alike, managed to infiltrate the royal cavalcade in Krukziener senior’s white Daimler after the royals left the Sheraton Hotel in Auckland following a farewell banquet.
Saluted at the entrance to Government House, they pulled up behind Charles and Diana’s Rolls as it stopped outside the house. The imposters made a quick exit when they realised they could be in serious trouble, leaving a red-faced security detail behind to answer questions.
Binoculars and thermal underwear
The tour had started off well, with an informal, off-the-record gathering between media and the royals. We drank and ate dainty finger food at Government House while waiting for Charles and Diana to emerge from their suite of rooms upstairs.
They swept into the room without warning; he went right and she went left, Diana heading straight for our group with her hand outstretched. My three male colleagues were mesmerised. She towered over us – 1.78m plus heels, all translucent skin and big blue eyes. We tried not to stare at the impressive blue sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring. The men gaped, leaving me to start the conversation. So I took a punt.
“Did William get sunburned in Australia, ma’am? I noticed his legs were red when you arrived at the airport,” I blurted out.
All eyes had been on Charles and Diana when they arrived from the Australian leg of their tour but I watched nanny Barbara Barnes pass close by carrying a bare-legged baby clad in a romper suit.
The Princess’ face lit up. “No, no,” she laughed. “He’s just learned to crawl and he’s rubbed his legs,” she explained, beaming with pride. Royal observers had already commented that the second-in-line to the throne was a little slow at meeting his milestones.
After she swooped off to the next group I looked at my speechless colleagues and burst out laughing. One of them had hastily tucked his club sandwich into the hand holding his G&T so he could shake hands with the Princess. He’d gripped the glass so tightly the sandwich had oozed between his fingers, sticking out like tiny sausages. The Princess must have noticed but she never let on.
She was in good spirits that evening, taking on members of the rat pack individually – asking Daily Mail royal correspondent James Whitaker, known for peering at her with his trademark binoculars, how he knew that she sometimes wore thermal underwear on chilly walkabouts.
“I have visions of you, Mr Whitaker, lying on the footpath with your binoculars trying to …”
At that Victor Chapman deftly ushered the flushed Princess out of the crowd and suddenly the couple were gone, back upstairs to Prince William. The meet-and-greet was over. It was time to start the royal tour.
On the road again
During walkabouts all eyes and cameras were on Prince Charles’ captivating 22-year-old wife, the bashful virgin bride who had obligingly produced a male heir in their first year of marriage.
We followed behind the couple, rushing up to the star-struck lucky ones who had been graced with a royal chat.
“What did she say?” But such was the allure of Diana that seconds after she had moved on, the “lucky ones” dissolved into tears and couldn’t remember what she’d said.
“Isn’t she BEAUTIFUL!” was about all they could manage. This was the era before talk of bulimia, suicide attempts, an unhappy marriage, infidelity, divorce and, 14 years later, a late-night car crash in Paris that would demolish a story that had begun as a fairy tale, and leave two young Princes without a mother.
Prince William was kept mostly out of sight but we were allowed one close encounter, the famous Buzzy Bee photocall on the lawn during which the baby Prince would indeed show off his newfound crawling skills.
Afterwards, a visibly relieved Diana carried her son back down a covered walkway, out of range of the camera lenses. She laughed and swung William high over her head to make him giggle, a moment that would have been the money shot had anyone been close enough to catch it on film.
There’s sadness thinking back to that moment of playful joy. Fourteen years later, on a Sunday afternoon shift at the Herald, my phone would ring from the newsroom downstairs. Diana was dead, killed in a car accident. Could I come downstairs and start writing?
And 28 years later I went to London to cover the marriage of that grown-up Prince to Catherine Middleton, a wedding his mother would miss. On Middleton’s finger would be her late mother-in-law’s sapphire and diamond ring.