Full transcript of “DUCHESS & THE DUKE " COULD NOT STAND HER" THE STORY YOU DON'T KNOW" #meghan #royal #princeharry”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:02 Welcome back, chums. As ever, thank you so much for joining me today. You know, the very first time I met one of my all-time favorite royals, the Duke of Edinburgh, it was quite by fluke, if I'm honest. Well, not totally fluke, because I was working on the event, right? And this was an event held at a very posh hotel in the heart of London at the time. And it's a totally different world, as I often say to you, because in those days, you know, people there were no phones, no internet. I know it sounds archaic, doesn't it, when you think, you know? But the thing is, it was a different time. I remember in this particular hotel being absolutely told off by not noticing or not getting a table quick enough for the then person in the government, Michael Heseltine, under Margaret Thatcher. He turned up, was
0:49 particularly rude, and I said, "Do you have a table booked?" He he did the usual bouncing hair thing, and said, "Do you know who I am?" I said, "That's irrelevant. I'm asking you, do you have a table booked?" That we were told, you know, this is what you do. And anyway, oh, he went potty, and I almost got fired for that, and you know what I mean? The stories I could share with you about the rich and famous. And it's so nice when you're able to share stories, as I did, hopefully, that you enjoyed the other day. Well, I know many of you did. Thank you for your lovely comments about Rain Spencer, because it's my memory. You know, when you've met these people, I mean, as I often say to you, chums, this is the thing that I get kind of annoyed about with stuff. You know, you get a lot of people, and they talk about, you know, particularly on certain programs, and they say, "Oh, you spent the day with the king." No, you didn't.
1:36 No, no, no, no. You were there in the press core. You stand behind a barrier. You film a little bit on your mobile phone. You're not with the king. You're not having a tête-à-tête. That's not the deal. But the way they project it is if, you know, I know these people. I'm flying around the world with them. You're there to report on a a strict thing, particularly in the royal rota. If you like international travel, if you like standing around for hours on end waiting just to film an arrival that everybody else is filming, maybe that's the job for you. I've been lucky to be able to mingle, produce, arrange, all sorts of things working with the royal family. And this is exactly how this happened with the Duke of Edinburgh. You know, when you have the chief barker or whatever they call him, you know, the person with the gavel, right? And he was
2:23 there, as I say, he's going to be top table stuff, and it was a big event and oh, you know, I'd worked on them before. Now, to give you a bit of background, as all of you know, I come from a theater family, so those sort of events don't frighten me, but they used to frighten a lot of the other staff. But, you know, to me, I found it more frightening going into a room of five people than 500. And if you said, "Here's 500 people and you have to sing," not a problem. Five people in a room and you have to sing, bit more worrying. What's that about, eh? Makes you think, right? Now, what's interesting is this. The Duke of Edinburgh, as I say, about 20 minutes, this particular elderly, you know, gavel master of ceremonies didn't feel particularly well. And, you know, I was concerned about him. It was the room was a bit like with the climate right now, very warm. And I thought, you know, I
3:08 hope he's all right, and we got him a cup of tea, but, you know, he wasn't. And he had to step away. They couldn't get anybody to replace. However, I had a red jacket and all the white tails and everything like that, and they somebody said, "Oh, he's a theatrical." Just love that phrase, don't you? "Oh, he's a theatrical," you know. "He could do it." So, the head banqueting manager came forward, asked me, could I do it, etc. And so, we did it, and that's how I ended up having a very lengthy chat with the Duke of Edinburgh. And what was interesting was the bit that I was nervous about. There was lots of dignitaries, but it was essentially a sort of show business event, right? And ultimately, I kind of knew quite a few of the names because dad had worked them all, you know, my granddad had worked
3:54 with them. So, I thought, "Oh, that's you know, so-and-so." And there were people there, uh you know, really big names in fact, you know, Michael Caine who then became a friend later on. Uh other sort of famous stars, Terence Stamp, you know, all sorts of people. Uh I was sort of more interested, if I'm going to be honest, in meeting some of the Carry On cast cuz that's sort of my humor at that level. But, you know, but you know, this sort of thing, you think, "Oh, right." I then had to introduce um His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh. And um then you know, then he gave a small speech and the microphone was placed there and all that sort of stuff. And afterwards, you know, he met the staff. Couldn't be nicer. You know, I have to say for the first meeting, bit frightening, bit blunt. And he said, "And this is the thing about people." He said, "Oh, I hear uh that you had to step in at the last moment." And I said,
4:40 "Well, yes." You know, I said, "Poor gentleman." He said, "You would never have known. Well done." He said, "And how do you get your voice to project so well?" And the chief banquet manager said, "Oh, he's a theatrical." Oh, really? You know. And so, we really hit it off and we talked about comedians and Tommy Cooper and stuff like that. And that's how I ended up bonding with him originally. Years later, I was lucky enough to perform uh in front of him and of course the Queen at various charitable things. That's all for a book as many of you know, chums. But, what's interesting is this sort of background as I say to these stories. It gives you the idea of why you know certain things and the people that you are. And the thing that I took away from the Duke of Edinburgh at that particular day was not only uh was I praised by the company that I was
5:25 working for, which is a bit of an oddity, I have to be honest. Uh I mean, obviously I'd saved their bacon and they didn't pay any extra, you know. I mean, this is the thing that you remember, isn't it? I I don't even think I got a like a day off or something. It's like, "Oh, no. Well, you can do that." And then suddenly, they wanted me to do all the weddings and stuff. But, nothing could compare to working alongside, you know, somebody like the Duke of Edinburgh. Uh you know, I remember my mom saying, "Weren't you nervous?" And I said, "Not really. I think I was more nervous for him because what you seen are people overrunning on their allotted time. You see what I mean?" That you've got these people and they they're supposed to do like 4 minutes and then Bob Monkhouse might do 20, you know, and you're like >> [laughter] >> "Come on, you know, we've got to move on." But I wasn't experienced enough to be able to shove them along. They're
6:11 major stars. I'm what in my teens. You see what I'm saying? Different times. And that's the reason why, and this is from an excellent source, I knew exactly how the Duke of Edinburgh had sussed out La Markle. You see, when Meghan Markle, as we all know, entered the royal family, she famously said she didn't know anything and she'd got no idea and all this sort of stuff. And Harry even fell for that line, which I've never forgotten, where he famously said, um she wanted to know who the man who was stood next to the Queen, which was, of course, the Duke of York. She'd no idea. Yet, good friends with Princess Eugenie, uh the Halloween picture. Did she never see a picture of the father? Never quite I mean, how thick do you have to be? Or does he just want to believe that
6:56 because this is the thing. Now, what I found out, and this is the thing where I it's fascinating because I believe, and these are my thoughts, right, chums? I believe the Queen just wanted a smooth ride. She's getting to a certain age, you know, Philip's at a certain age at the time of the wedding. She didn't want any backlash, any problems, you know, this sort of thing. Where this is interesting is right from the off, this exploded. And this is because when the the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, learned about this particular question, on one of the very first sit-down meetings of the Queen, I think it might have been the third one in, apparently Meghan Markle wanted to know what it was like meeting JFK and Jackie Kennedy when he famously came over to England in the early 60s,
7:44 you know, I think it was 61, 62, something like that. And you know, apparently the Queen must have relayed this back to Prince Philip. I'm sure they talked about everything. And apparently Philip was a bit odd, you know, why would you want to know that? Particularly remember when La Markle said that she knew nothing about the royal family. Now, what really exploded and what kicked off in a negative in many respects was when Markle was dubbed, you know, DOW by Prince Philip, right? God, I love him, don't you? And he basically dubbed her this and she didn't like that. Now, the thing that he pointed out to Harry was, well, if she doesn't know anything about the Duchess of Windsor, why she, you know, more I mean, it's a nice it's just a nickname, another American in the family. Then it got back to her about,
8:31 you know, the fact that you don't marry actresses, one just steps out with them. It's a very famous quote and it's a famous quote that, you know, really is kind of true, particularly with members of the royal family. We'd seen this numerous times. We saw recently a book regarding Prince Edward and the West End musical stars. And a friend of mine, Ruthie Henshall, when they dated in the late 80s and stuff like that. Ultimately, you know, it never was going to work. She admitted it. But likewise, Prince Andrew went out with a number of actresses including Koo Stark and Katie Rabett and things like that. But he didn't marry them, did he? But of course, this got back to La Markle and she was absolutely steaming, chums, let me tell you. Because this was really the plummet for her. And I know
9:17 this from a fact from somebody who worked with her. She didn't really hold the Duke of Edinburgh in such high esteem. Mainly because, and this is my belief, that he just torpedoed right through her. He knew it. But again, what really set his antennae up was this. We all thought it was the fact that, do you remember when she turned up at the wedding in that now gorgeous Rolls which had been used to drive the then Duchess of Windsor, now a widow, at the time of the funeral over here in the United Kingdom. And as apparently Prin- Prince Philip pointed out, "Well, how does she know about this stuff? You mean what you know and and apparently this was backed up with well, she was just looking at the American associations of the Royals and
10:03 America, you know, how has it crossed over?" Philip having any of it, right? I mean 100% wasn't taking any of this in and this was cemented by this. When eventually she's now inside Buckingham Palace and this is a thing that you have to remember. Meghan Markle was very much across all of the technology the moment it was out and this was all thanks to her, you know, thing that she did, the tick. But she was taking pictures which alarmed a lot of staff. But you see, they were in a very indelicate position, were they not? Because it was seen, if you think about it, as being embraced by the Queen, right? So, this is difficult because there was only people like Angela Kelly with any backbone that was saying, "You're not allowed to do that." Which then she got hooved in and reported
10:50 about and all of that. Right, Angela? Uh but she had the backbone to say, "No, you you you can't do this. This is not the norm." But of course Markle was taking as much as she could. What then got back to the Duke of Edinburgh was that she wanted to view the room that the Duchess of Windsor had stayed in, remember in the head of the funeral in '72, and she was welcomed back in and given an apartment as, you know, sort of rooms in Buckingham Palace which was kind of famous and there's a famous picture of her peering out of Buckingham Palace window. Again, on top of that of using the Rolls-Royce, the Duke of Edinburgh basically said this woman is going to be trouble. He could see it. But at this point the Queen is now tied, and obviously, and I believe this as well,
11:35 talking to people who'd worked around them at this time, that, you know, King Charles, as he is, the Prince of Wales, was charmed by her. You know, he she couldn't charm the Duke of Edinburgh. He was way too sassy in his years to be able to, you know, I think he thought she was a good-looking woman, you know, I heard that, but he wasn't going to be drawn in by this, whereas Charles was. Back to with Harry's go-shun, back to with the stories about William and Catherine liking her. You You know what I'm saying, chums? All of this sort of stuff. And what eventually happened was there was no relationship at all, regardless of what goes around of, "Oh, yes, they got on and they No." You know, the Duke of Edinburgh knew and stated quite firmly that this woman was going to be trouble. He felt that the warning
12:20 signs of things like looking around the apartments of Wallis Simpson, meanwhile, walking past everything else about Queen Victorian, not interested in that, and taking pictures of that apartment. Again, I have to say allegedly, but we know they're there. Well, ultimately, this is why he decided enough was enough. Harry, though, some might suggest, even turned on his grandfather, because ultimately, he felt that, you know, everybody's now trying to take this one chance of happiness away from me. As I said at the start of the video, the Duke of Edinburgh was an amazing man, and I believe even from the very first meeting with him, I think he could pick people up. And he said to me, it was an interesting thing, he said, "You know, it's different. When you're announcing things, you lose your
13:06 northern accent." And I said, "Oh, thank you." And he said, "Oh, no, no, don't lose it. This is what makes you unique." He said, "You must keep it." And I explained about how in hotels, they like you to have flatline voices and stuff, you know. And he said, "Oh, no, no, no." He said, "I could pick up those dulcet tones." He said, "I knew you were from the north." And that was kind of And he laughed and It was a magical moment and that's the reason why I believe the Duke of Edinburgh truly was the nemesis in the side of Meghan Markle and that's the reason in my opinion also why they were not intent on pulling their documentary as he lay passing away sadly in the hospital. Anybody else agree? Neil Sean in the very heart of Kensington.
