Meghan and Harry: The Real Story by Lady Colin Campbell – Review

 

Meghan and Harry: The Real Story by Lady Colin Campbell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Her Ladyship builds a case that Meghan is a controlling, manipulative fake and Harry a besotted idiot – all the while declaring at frequent intervals how much sympathy she has for them and how she hopes to see them do well.

In some ways she is quite convincing, partly because she moves in aristocratic circles in which she has access to both facts and gossip that most of us don't. However she is fond of extremely spurious methods of argument, saying things like, 'Some people might think that ...', 'It's possible to interpret this as ...' and so on – and then, later in the book, using these speculative incidents as if they were proven fact, as the basis for saying things like, 'This is yet another example of [some piece of reprehensible behaviour or bad intentions]' or, 'As we have seen, [X] is typical.' (I'm paraphrasing from memory, not quoting exactly.)

She defends the tabloids against accusations of bias, and the British against a racist attitude to Meghan. Sorry – I became very interested in Meghan when her romance with Harry first went public, so I did a lot of research online and read everything that came up about her. In the tabloids, the poor woman couldn't take a trick. Whatever she did, it was wrong.

For instance, I bought the issue of Vogue she edited. (It wasn't distributed to Australia, but I was able to order it.) It seemed a very interesting thing for a new member of royalty to do, so I was curious. That's when I first realised that, whatever else Meghan is, she is essentially a writer – which has now been proved several times over, with other things she has authored. I might add, I consider her a very good writer.

I liked and respected what she had to say there, and other aspects of her editing of that issue. She was soon questioned as to why her own face was not included on the cover, among 'women of influence'. When she said she thought that would seem boastful, this was immediately touted in the tabloids as insulting to both Princess Diana and the Duchess of Cambridge, who had been featured on Vogue covers. Could nobody see the obvious – that there's a vast difference between being invited to appear on a cover and putting oneself on the cover of an issue which one has oneself edited? Of course she would have been criticised for being boastful, had she done so!

I could cite many other instances of tabloid prejudice, distortion of facts and outright lying. Suffice to say that Lady CC's defence of the tabloids doesn't really hold water.

There's also the telling point that Prince Harry's two previous most serious relationships, with Chelsey Davy and Cressida Bonas, broke up (we are told) because neither young woman would continue facing the intense media scrutiny.

I certainly discerned racial undertones in much of the tabloid coverage, as well as snobbishness on the basis of class – a snobbishness which Lady CC's book is also full of. Half the time she doesn't even seem to realise she has this attitude, but it's very apparent. Perhaps someone of her background takes it all for granted. I of course, as an Australian, am one of those colonials whom she gently disparages as not really understanding British manners and mores.

Oddly enough, that very point is one of the strengths of this book. She has spent considerable time in America too, and is able to explain clearly the great differences in British and American customs and attitudes – which account in large part for the very different ways in which Meghan and Harry are perceived on different sides of the Atlantic, and also for ways in which Meghan upset and offended people in her new country without having any notion that that's what she was doing – and without such people realising she wasn't intentionally being rude and thoughtless.

I'm grateful to this author for clarifying that for me, and doing so in some detail. Otherwise I would never have guessed at some of the finer points of British (and particularly aristocratic) sensibility. It's a fascinating look at these social distinctions. Nevertheless I'm disappointed that she only pretends to be giving a fair, balanced and sympathetic point of view whilst really doing a nice little hatchet job. If I ever read Lady Colin Campbell again, I'm afraid it will now be with a fair degree of cyncism.

However, credit where it's due. It's one big mark in the book's (publisher's) favour that typos and other copy-editing mistakes are almost absent.

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In Defence of MM

No, not Marilyn Monroe (who needs no defending now, having long been fully appreciated since her death) – but that more recent member of the acting profession, Meghan Markle.

Like Marilyn (of whom it was not widely known when she was alive, nor perhaps even now) the new MM is a writer. And what a writer!

When she edited an issue of VOGUE, I was curious enough to buy a copy. I had to get it imported into Australia to my local newsagent. It's not at all the sort of magazine I would normally buy, as an Age Pensioner with limited funds and no great interest in the dictates of fashion. But I thought Markle an interesting woman.

When she came to prominence as the future wife of Prince Harry, I researched her – unlike, apparently, the tabloid writers and assorted snobs and racists who thought she wasn't good enough to marry British royalty. It really wasn't difficult to find the facts!

She's a university graduate, she has worked for World Vision and addressed the United Nations on gender equality, and in her early days of trying to break into acting, she supported herself between gigs by freelance calligraphy and teaching book-binding. All of which stamps her as being both bookish and politically aware.

I've already written in detail at this blog on my impressions of that issue of VOGUE, focusing on her role as a guest editor. The thing I might also have stressed, and do emphasise now, is that it included several samples of her own writing, both in her Guest Editor's Letter and the introduction to her feature 'Forces for Change', which highlighted various women she sees as being such forces. I read them both of course and immediately thought, with pleasure, 'Oh, she's a writer!' An excellent writer, in fact.

Her moving article in THE NEW YORKER about her miscarriage confirms this. It's both uncompromisingly honest and beautifully crafted. 

In fact her very first claim to fame was due to a piece of writing: a letter she wrote at the age of 11 to a soap manufacturer, asking for a change to sexist language in their advertisement. It was effective! They changed the wording. And it still attests to both her ability with the written word and the genuineness of her progressive views.

A Republican Like Me Sticking Up For Royalty???

Not into fashion as the latest ‘look’, I like to create my own style (on limited budget). And I’m ideologically opposed to hereditary monarchy / aristocracy. But I admire the way some contemporary royals conduct themselves, and I’m interested in the Sussexes. 

What a lot of nasty press they get! One headline says they’re about to divorce, another that they are adopting 4 girls. All nonsense. 

They’re criticised for spending public money on their home, despite official advice the building was overdue for repair and public money only went to those aspects that make it national property. Personal touches were at their own expense. 

They’re criticised for not letting their new baby get flashlights in his eyes. A mark of good parenting, I think. 

They’re criticised for excessive security and privacy during and immediately after Meghan’s pregnancy. Does no-one recall what happened to Harry’s mother when he was only 11, and his revelations about the lasting trauma that has been? And here’s his wife getting racist and/or snobbish hate mail. Of course he’s exceedingly protective. 

She’s criticised for saying it would have seemed boastful to include her own face on the cover of her guest-edited issue of Vogue. A slur, ‘they’ say, on Princess Diana and Duchess Kate, who did covers. Very different circumstances, being invited to be photographed for a cover and, as editor, putting oneself forward. (She’d have been criticised either way.) 

I’m not a Vogue reader, obviously, but I got the local newsagent to order this issue for me. Skipping past the necessary ads which keep the magazine afloat, and failing to covet the startling clothes, I find articles, serious and entertaining at the same time, about ways in which women can be empowered and empowering. 

I also know that while Meghan, who has long been in the public eye, is interested in both fashion and style, she is passionate about ‘sustainable fashion’ and is supportive of businesses which take that initiative. 

I’m glad I bought this issue, which will give me lots of good reading yet.