Ken Wharf filled the room with an aura of happiness as he shared his experiences with Princess Diana and her extended family. Ken managed to keep us interested and give a detailed account of the most famous British royal of our time, Diana. To build you with the story I invite you to Imagine a Princess with her ‘Prince charming’ along with two royal children and most importantly her bodyguard or her knight with the shining armour. As a former SAS officer he was fit to be appointed as Personal Officer to Princess Diana in the year 1987. Ken Wharf brings us the real life of royals with added drama of all things rich and wonderful that certainly create the mood for a ‘Once upon a time’ fairytale story. As a true gentlemen Ken was not overwhelmed by the size of our group, he sat comfortably facing us and continued to charm us with his sophisticated yet witty style. The story of the princess and the bodyguard continued with hidden details of princess Diana innermost details of affairs, family life and private visits to Astrologers and Tarot reader. Hours passed as he reminisced about the times he spent as her bodyguard and says, "I do think about her especially at times like this". Knowing the princess personally, Ken lets us know that Diana would have ‘loved’ these kinds of interviews as she enjoyed meeting ordinary people and would usually interact with them much better than Prince Charles would.
Ken remembers that the princess had several account with Camilla, her suspicion of an affair between her husband and Camilla started earlier in their marriage and was truly clear to Diana as she saw Prince Charles speaking intimately with Camilla at a Christmas party they had been invited to by Camilla’s sister. Ken recalls the account between the Prince and Camilla as Diana was hysterically looking for her husband Charles who had gone missing during the party, that was at Ham House for Camilla’s younger sister Annabel Elliott’s 40th birthday party. Ken was following Diana as she searched for Charles and had found him talking with Camilla in the basement, at this point she confronted them and Ken clearly recalls Camilla replaying to Diana “its alright for you, you’ve got two children”.
Despite the differences between Diana and Prince Charles the kids had a good upbringing ‘both William and Harry had a fairly good upbringing ’ Ken declared. Seeing both Princes grow up Ken says their behaviour especially Prince Harry was always flamboyant that is why Harry’s behaviour in the past years is not surprising to him ‘Harry was always a loose cannon’ the media coverage of Prince Harry and his battles with the paparazzi were ‘normal happening’ in Ken’s view, especially for a Prince who seemed to have the media all over him after his leap into adulthood. Ken remember the day as Prince Harry childishly said to his older brother and first line to the throne William “its alright for you you’ll be king and I wont”.
Ken’s relationship with Diana and the kids grew as Diana always encouraged her kids to have contact with members of staff in the royal family palace. ‘Diana openly encouraged both of the boys to speak to everybody at every walk of life, they were happy to talking to Lily the Pilipino clean, Mervin the gay chief, the butlers, the Chauffeurs, the driver everyone had a relationship with them’ with much emphasis he follows by saying ‘this was very much Diana’s influence’. Surely Diana having come from a much relaxed family than the Royal family she was able to think freely and encourage her kids to do the same. Working with the Royal family for a long time Ken was observant of Diana’s action and nature and had noticed that she stands out from the rest of the family ‘she was different from all the royals’ he tells us that she enjoyed socialising with members of staff and did not feel that there should be a segregation. However, Prince Charles could not understand her actions and would even question her at times. Nevertheless, Ken claims to be unaffected by Diana's influence in his life, there is no doubt that she had a major influence on his life as he is still involved with anything that concerns the Princess and sometimes the main source of information on Diana's private life having been involve in many documentaries about the famous princess.
After Diana and Dodi’s accident In Paris the enquiry on the couple and especially on the Al-Fayed stories, Ken points out what he thought of Al-Fayed as he said ‘I think Mohamed Al-Fayed is obsessed and was obsessed with this scene ’. Furthermore, Ken thought the case Mohamed Al-Fayed brought forward was not adequate enough to support his allegations. Ken believes that Al-Fayed still grieving for his son Dodi and Diana whom he loved so much. His conspiracy theories included the royals and the Americans conspiring against AL-Fayed and his son to keep her away from the Muslim family. Ken also mentioned that Al-Fayed seemed to be unwilling to come to terms with his son’s death. In Harrods were Al-Fayed is the lucrative owner he erected two monuments for Diana and His son Dodi. Furthermore, Al-Fayed’s chosen place to bury his son also adds to the questions on everyone’s mind, his son is buried at his home in Egypt.
Kens view on the incident at Paris is that the security was too low, after princess Diana gave up her security from the royal protection her safety was in question by Ken as he had previously worked with the princess. Although Ken doesn't believe the security was solely responsible for her death he believes that Diana was in danger after she dropped the security service weeks after Ken resigned from the royal security services.
Diana was highly superstitious about her death, she visited along with Ken Tarot readers who had told her she might die in a car accident. He recalls the visits to a certain Tarot reader, the room was " filled with candles" he said as he filled us in what he saw in the place. He walked up the stairs to the top floor and he saw Diana sitting in a room, which had a huge window with a small hole on the sealing. Diana sitting beneath the sealing was meditating, Ken surprised by this quickly asked what she was doing and in replay Diana said “ I’m letting the bad energy out ” of the sealing that is mean to be some kind of portal. Despite these secret visit and superstitions believe Ken claims that Diana was not obsessed as he says “I don’t think she was paranoid” but still he says that she was very “unhappy about the relationship” with Prince Charles.
After Princess Diana’s death Ken felt he had to somehow still protect Diana as no body had spoken of the good thing Diana had accomplished. He felt that the public had to know the story from another point of view. In writing the book ‘Closely Guarded Secret’ in 2002 Ken wanted to show Diana’s positive side as opposed to all the negative stories that were on the media coverage. However, the Royal family did not approve of this and Ken said, “He did not expect to be in their Christmas list ” without any disappointments in his face, luckily for him he does not expect any gratitude from the royal family either.
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