Book and Video Reviews, T-Z

Book and Video Reviews, T-Z: includes reviews the 1997 video A Tribute to Diana by S.G. Productions, Elizabeth Vickers' novel The Way of Gentleness, The Truth by Judy Wade, and Ken Wharfe's Diana: Closely Guarded Secret.

A Tribute to Diana (video)

A couple of months ago I bought the video,  A Tribute to Diana (S.G. Productions, 1997), and I'm
reviewing it here to warn you not to add it to your collection if you haven't already got it. The best
part about it is the box, a sturdy plastic container which closes and has a jacket with some lovely
photos on it, especially the cover portrait of a smiling Diana in a dark green velvet jacket with a
matching John Martin veiled hat and sapphire earrings. It has no narration, no organization, and
such a paucity of footage that many clips are repeated several times. It concludes with a shot of
Diana begging to be let alone and placing her hand upon the camera lens. There is nothing about
it that makes it worth watching again. (Originally appeared April 1, 2000.)

Elizabeth Vickers--The Way of Gentleness

Elizabeth Vickers' The Way of Gentleness is what I would describe as a New Age novel, and I use that term respectfully, not as a put-down. Princess Helena is severely injured in the car crash in Paris, but instead of dying, she is smuggled out of the hospital by a mysterious Greek doctor who takes her to a Greek island where she returns to health. (He also arranges that the unclaimed body of an aristocratic young English woman who strongly resembles her and was also brought in around the same time to take her place.) Her son Eds is told by a nurse at one of the funeral walkabouts not to worry about his mother, and he believes it and writes in his journal every day about what happens to him, since he is convinced that he will meet her again. The author deftly interweaves material about Eds, a young inner-city boy who once met Princess Helena, and a lover of the dead English woman with Helena's own evolution into a renowned healer, and it ends in a reunion with her sons and husband on the island.  It's a skillful contemplation on the themes of love, forgiveness and healing which is very soothing to the spirit. (Originally appeared October 31, 1999.)

Judy Wade--The Truth

Worth paying postage for from England: The Truth by Judy Wade (2000). Wade is a long-time
royal reporter whose previous books include Charles and Diana: Inside a Royal Marriage (1987)
and Diana: Portrait of a Princess (1998), that beautiful book of Jayne Fincher's photos. She names
two sources, a long-time hairdresser of Diana's and a woman from Australia who was responsible
for Diana traveling to Australia on behalf of the Victor Chang Heart Institute, and it lends even
more support to the belief that Dr. Khan was her true love because she had intended for him to
make the trip there with her. It's at AmazonUK for 12.79 pounds (about $19.50) plus shipping, so
don't let yourself get caught in some bidding war at Ebay where it has gone much higher.  (Originally appeared January 31, 2001)

Ken Wharfe--Diana: Closely Guarded Secret

The biggest book of this season is Diana: Closely Guarded Secret by Ken Wharfe, who was Diana's bodyguard for six years from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Up until a few weeks ago he was still working for the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Squad with the assignment of guarding the Duke of Kent, but he resigned and disappeared from his flat in London, undoubtedly in anticipation of the fallout from this book, which is currently being run in excerpts in the Sunday
Times. He alleges that Diana is being air-brushed out of history in order to make Mrs. Parker-Bowles an acceptable consort to the future king, and he also protests that he does not recognize the Diana he sees in a number of books, since she was happy and jovial. It has provoked probably the greatest outrage in the royal family of any book yet published, since Charles has talked with the Royalty protection squad about how to prevent further books of this sort and is said to be looking at the possibility of legal action. (One of the papers speculated that Charles is actually worried that one of his bodyguards might do a book on him.) William and Harry are reported to be not on speaking terms with their own dectectives, and to be very upset at what they consider a betrayal by a father figure, since Wharfe even stood in for Prince Charles at the Father's race on one of William's school days. I thought it was one of the most flattering books I have read about Diana within the past five years, for he had nothing but good things to say about her until the last year. As in Simone Simon's book, he obscured why their rift occurred, aside from saying that he didn't approve of some of the people around her and the advice they were giving her, with no names mentioned. He also said that her behavior in regards to eluding security was starting to worry him (the twenty-foot jump from the hotel balcony in Switzerland so she could get out on her own one night that the papers kept harping on). And based on his perspective and experience as a security guard, he provides the best explanation I have seen yet as to why her death was an accident. He implies that the bodyguards had insufficient experience for such high-level security, that they failed to overrule their boss as any good security guard should have done, and that a bodyguard or the chauffeur who had driven that afternoon should have been the driver. He also demolishes the the conspiracy theories by discussing the workings of operations like MI6, who would be unlikely to use so chancy a way to kill someone they really wanted to get rid of. You won't be sorry to get this one. (Originally appeared August 29, 2002.)

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