{"id":1079922,"date":"2026-07-10T05:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T05:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1079922\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T05:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T05:29:22","slug":"the-real-prince-harry-and-william-according-to-their-private-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1079922\/","title":{"rendered":"The real Prince Harry and William, according to their private secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton has never been to Club H, the infamous club in the basement at Highgrove House, where Princes William <\/a>and Harry<\/a> used to invite their friends to party away from the prying eyes of the press. In fact, he\u2019s never even heard of it, he says, which seems bizarre for someone who was private secretary to the princes (and, latterly, Catherine, now the Princess of Wales<\/a>) for eight years from 2005, when the boys were in their twenties. \u201cOh that,\u201d he nods when I explain what it actually was. \u201cOh, I do remember it, but, you know, I was working for them, there had to be a line. They were very sweet, but if I had gone to this club and reverted to scallywag type it would have been very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Harry\u2019s wildly successful and controversial memoir Spare<\/a>, Lowther-Pinkerton (or JLP as the princes used to call him) is not a scallywag but one of the few royal staffers about whom the Prince is nice. He describes him as \u201cdeeply calm, slightly stiff\u2026 he didn\u2019t deal in bullshit. He didn\u2019t give it, didn\u2019t take it\u2026 his finest trait was his reverence for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

JLP was the man to whom Harry went when he wanted to see photos from the night his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, died<\/a>, and the man whose counsel helped fix the bad press after young Duke dressed up as a Nazi<\/a> at a fancy-dress birthday party. \u201cThat particular occasion was just lack of thought,\u201d says Lowther-Pinkerton now. \u201cNothing needed to be explained to him, the moment it came out he went, \u2018what an idiot\u2019\u2026 and afterwards it was his motivation to go back to Berlin and honour the people he had offended. They were both bright lads, in their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

My own experience of JLP, now 65, as we meet over video call ahead of the launch of his (really rather good) debut novel \u2013 he in his study in his home in Suffolk \u2013 is that he is indeed deeply calm, although not especially stiff. He is careful in his references to his former employers but warm too. There\u2019s clearly a lot of residual affection for both the future king and his brother, and a deep sadness at what has happened between them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,Lowther-Pinkerton with the princes at the 10th anniversary memorial service for Diana, Princess of Wales, in London in 2007 (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t around when the break happened, but what I can say is that when I worked for them the bond was very strong. No two ways about it. In their own ways, they are both remarkable people. So different. When they did things together, which actually you sort of had to ration because you didn\u2019t want them to be insolubly joined at the hip, they were powerful. I always say William was like the Lion King, a natural born leader standing on his rock, and Harry was roaring around like a buzzy bee at the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder if he thinks the much-documented estrangement between the brothers<\/a>, seemingly ongoing since Harry and the Duchess of Sussex left the UK in 2018, and since followed by the younger Prince\u2019s explosive memoir, a Netflix series<\/a>, an Oprah interview<\/a> and other interviews arguably damaging to the Royal Family, can be mended. Lowther-Pinkerton sighs and smiles. \u201cI am a perennial optimist.\u201d<\/p>\n

His book, Beyond the Edge of Light, is a historical romance that, it should be said, touches a lot on the subjects of honour, country and family. Given Lowther-Pinkerton\u2019s background as a military man (he was an officer in the British Army for 20 years, serving in both the Irish Guards and the SAS, and went to Sandhurst and Eton, like his former employer, Harry) and royal staffer (he was also equerry to the Queen Mother between 1984 and 1986), his sudden turn to novelist seems surprising. Especially so when he tells me that he\u2019s \u201cnot a big fiction reader at all\u201d (\u201cat Eton I really just read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and Ned the Lonely Donkey\u201d), although he has always kept a diary. He started writing the novel five years ago. \u201cI just thought it would be the most fantastic escape, and it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is an energetic and sensitively written tale about the Second World War, in which Missy, a young English woman fresh out of finishing school, finds herself in Berlin in the late 1930s as Europe teeters on the brink of war. There, she falls for Conrad, a thoughtful German who is horrified by the Nazis but finds himself conscripted into the Luftwaffe. Later, when war strikes, Missy is recruited as a translator at the wartime code-breaking centre Bletchley Park<\/a>, and Conrad unhappily flies planes for the enemy: can their romance survive?<\/p>\n

\"Britain'sLowther-Pinkerton with Catherine, Princess of Wales. Kate, he says, has \u2018got a great moral compass and she\u2019s a great partner\u2019 (Photo: Chris Radburn\/AFP)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to read into this story wry observations about love across national divides, themes that Lowther-Pinkerton must have known might easily be read as reflections on problems within the current British Royal Family<\/a>. At one point, he references Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII<\/a>, that other member of the House of Windsor who abandoned his royal duties for an American divorc\u00e9e. Was an American actress always going to be an essential challenge for the Royal Family?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t actually know. If people are right for each other, then it doesn\u2019t matter where they come from. My mother and father were poles apart.\u201d Lowther-Pinkerton\u2019s mother, on whom the character of Missy was partly based (\u201cIf she thought somebody was behaving badly, she could be tough as hell\u201d), was, like Missy, a \u201cdaughter of Empire\u201d, growing up in India with her father a major in the Punjab. His father was of Anglo-Irish landed gentry stock, although also in the Army, so perhaps not to most people\u2019s eyes quite as different as a British translator and German solider in wartime. Or indeed, an English prince and an American actress.<\/p>\n

At one point in the book, Lowther-Pinkerton writes: \u201cConrad or country? Duty or love?\u201d In fact, the whole premise of the novel is, I observe, the exploration of whether or not one can have both. I wonder if he thinks it\u2019s something the Royal Family think about a lot. \u201cOne of the things I don\u2019t get \u2013 and I sound like my father \u2013 is this idea of, you know, family always comes first. If you\u2019re a bomber pilot whose wife is expecting a child and you go over the border and that night she has the child, and someone says family comes first. Well, sometimes it simply doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he mean that duty has been a little forgotten in the younger generations? \u201cYes, I think probably it has.\u201d <\/p>\n

I believe Lowther-Pinkerton when he says he is a perennial optimist though, and can see how he might have been a source of great joy and kindness to two young men under a lot of public scrutiny. He is easy to talk to, jolly but serene. He talks with deep fondness about his wife (\u201cI married the girl next door\u201d) and his four children, now aged 18 to 27. And despite the confession that he himself usually reads historical non-fiction, he\u2019s clearly a bit of a dreamer. \u201cIt\u2019s a funny thing about soldiers; they are actually quite sentimental and romantic. Your thoughts flick back to home and you know who\u2019s waiting for you there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

His first job with \u201cThe Firm\u201d<\/a> was as equerry to the Queen Mother, when he was just 22. \u201cI adored her. The thing that annoys me about The Crown<\/a> is the way they portrayed her. They made her look like this sort of whiskey-guzzling, ineffectual [sort of person]. She was the most extraordinary, tough, kind woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then later, when he was in his forties, he became private secretary to the princes. \u201cThat a was completely different job. With the Queen Mother, that was really an Edwardian household. If you\u2019d taken it and plonked it down in the middle of Downton Abbey it would have been run the same way. Nowadays it\u2019s a much more corporate environment. I wasn\u2019t a proper private secretary, I was a sort of companion. I guided and mentored them. And kept people off their backs. Because it was really important, you know, that in their twenties they had their time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Catherine joined the household too. \u201c[She] really is a remarkable person. If William had crawled the kingdom, north, south, east, west, he couldn\u2019t have found anyone better than her. She\u2019s got a great moral compass and she\u2019s a great partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is godfather to William\u2019s eldest son, Prince George<\/a>, who, it has been announced just before we speak, will be going to Eton College<\/a>, where William went and where Lowther-Pinkerton also went, as did his son. \u201cI loved it, but it has also changed for the better since I was there. I think there\u2019s a much better understanding now that children need to be with their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he keep in touch much with William, Harry and Catherine? \u201cA bit, yes.\u201d How do they feel about him writing this book? \u201cThe answer is I don\u2019t know because I haven\u2019t asked them. I just know that if I did I\u2019d get a snort down the phone, saying, \u2018come on Pinky, we know your background, we know you\u2019re a bit of a scallywag\u2019. Oh, if they see the steamy bits in there\u2026 I\u2019m dreading people reading those.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are indeed some (rather beautifully written) steamy bits in Beyond The Edge of Light. But perhaps after the steamy bits in Spare, Harry, at least, will feel it\u2019s all par for the course.<\/p>\n

\u2018Beyond the Edge of Light\u2019<\/strong><\/a> is published by Bantam, \u00a316.99<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton has never been to Club H, the infamous club in the basement at Highgrove House, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1079923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7708],"tags":[4036,17976,447,532,5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":["post-1079922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-royals","tag-book-interviews","tag-book-reviews","tag-prince-harry","tag-prince-william","tag-royal","tag-royal-families","tag-royal-family","tag-royals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1079923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}