As a broadcaster and journalist, Jennie Bond has spent many years in the presence of royalty. In celebration of the Platinum Jubilee, our Cruise Miles® Ambassador recalls her 5 most memorable encounters with the Royal family:
An invitation to the Palace
People often imagine that to be appointed as the BBC’s royal correspondent you have to be vetted by royalty. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s the newsroom boss that appoints you and it’s then up to you to get acquainted with the people at the Palace. In the first instance, that’s certainly not the Queen herself but her press secretary and staff.
I must say, though, that nothing quite beats the first time I was waved through those famous gates to crunch my stilettoed way over the gravel to the Privy Purse entrance. I wondered if I would have to know but, just as I arrived at the top of the steps, the door swung open and a liveried footman ushered me in. “Good morning, Miss Bond,” he said, guiding me to the small waiting room just beside the Press Secretary’s office.
It was the first of scores of visits to the Palace over the following three decades. Some were routine: a chance to chat through upcoming events or analyse the current state of play. But some were exceptionally dramatic. For example, the time I was summoned to a top-secret meeting with a handful of correspondents from other networks to be told in the strictest confidence that the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales was over. As soon as the Prime Minister, John Major, had announced the news in the Commons, we were allowed out of the Palace. We raced across the gravel, our hearts beating in panic, to get our cameras outside and relay the details to the world. A moment in history, for sure but for us, just another rollercoaster of a day at the office!
Getting to know “Her Maj”
Meeting the Queen is always special. In the course of more than 30 years of reporting on the Royal Family, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet her several times and each occasion was a day to remember. The Queen has a dazzling smile and a dry sense of humour. Probably unwisely, I’ve often tried to tap into that humour, with varying degrees of success. I’ve told her ludicrous stories about horses, tales about seeing her wedding dress with its unbelievably tiny waist and I’ve joked about standing outside “her house” and wondering if she’s inside watching me on TV and thinking, “Whatever is that woman talking about now?”
Some of my efforts have won a smiler from her, my admiration for her minuscule waistline when she married made her giggle but one or two of my stories elicited only an icy stare… before she quickly moved on. Oh well, win some lose some!
Meeting Diana
The Diana years were traumatic for everyone involved. My life was ruled by my pager and by phone calls from the office calling me in - day or night - to report on yet another dramatic turn of events.
Even so, I couldn’t help but like the Princess. She invited me to her apartment at Kensington Palace on a few occasions to talk through all that was happening in her troubled life.
Months before her notorious Panorama interview, she confided in me that there had been “three of them” in her marriage. And yet she told me, too, that she felt Camilla had behaved with dignity and loyalty and deserved some form of recognition.
Diana had the most glorious giggle and would often throw her head back, laughing… usually after telling a story against herself.
After one of our last meetings, I told her she had great legs and wondered what tights she wore. She ran off to the bedroom and came back with an unopened pair which she insisted on giving me. I wore my “royal tights” several times until I accidentally laddered them. I wrote to the Princess in mock dismay about the demise of my hosiery. Before I knew it, I had a phone call inviting me to the Palace, where I was presented with a white shoebox. Inside were seven pairs of tights and a lighthearted note from Diana.
After she died, I packed the remaining two pairs away, forever.
Tea with the Prince
Journalists are not high on the list of Royalty’s favourite people. But most of the Royal Family understand that there’s little point in having an invisible monarchy. The media, therefore, are a necessary nuisance. And I like to think that I’ve always had a good relationship with Prince Charles. I’ve followed him around the world, reported on the cruel years of his marriage breakdown and seen him find new happiness with the love of his life, Camilla.
He used to joke about my inappropriate footwear on tours abroad. Seeing me stumbling over a muddy, ploughed field near St. Petersburg in my white stilettos, he called over saying, “Wrong shoes, I think, Miss Bond!” And it was much the same when he caught me in the same shoes in the middle of a cornfield in New Zealand.
I shall always remember the first time he invited me to Highgrove for a tour of the gardens followed by tea. We sat in his drawing room and chatted about issues that mattered to him then… as they do now; organic farming, genetic engineering, the environment and sustainability. He was a man with a mission and it is a mission that is still just as important to him.
Party at the Palace
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since the Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee.
It was an incredibly busy year for her… and for me. It began with the sad death of her sister, Margaret, followed a few weeks later by that of her beloved mother at the grand old age of 101. It was an inauspicious start to a year of celebration.
But, in the following months, the Queen, the Duke and a large press party set off on a tour around the whole of the UK and much of the Commonwealth. It was hectic and exhausting and fun.
There is, however, one moment from those celebrations that sticks in my mind more than any other. And that was when thousands of people were invited into the Palace Gardens for a full-on rock concert. The lineup included Paul McCartney, Elton John, Queen, Annie Lennox and Ozzy Osbourne. Quite what the Queen thought of it all, we shall never know. But I’m sure, like me, she will never forget the extraordinary way the concert opened.
Suddenly, an electric guitar twanged the opening chords of the National Anthem. Everyone looked around to see where it was coming from. And then, high up on the Palace roof, we saw the long, dark mane of Brian May blowing in the wind as he banged out God Save The Queen.
What a night it was! No one who was there could ever forget it.
