The Princess's so-called 'time and space speech' at the end of '93 about a year after the formal separation, looking back on it it's called her retirement from public life but we've seen in fact it's nothing of the kind.

I went on a long trip through South America with Prince Charles where I was the only journalist there - a couple of photographers but no other writers.

As somebody who's been writing about this subject for getting on twenty years now, it's astonishing how the climate has changed in the last five years.

I first got to know Charles in the late seventies when I wrote an article and then a book about him and I think at the time he came across as quite appealing, it was probably the height of his popularity.

I mean Buckingham Palace has never hired a professional public relations outfit let alone a Madison Avenue type and they would throw up their hands in horror at the very idea.

Thatcher came under pressure from right wing backbenchers to shut up the Prince of Wales and there was a deal done between them where he did actually shut up in the end.

It was delightful but, of course, it was pretty insulting to my professional reputation.