The Housekeeper's Diary: Charles and Diana Before the Breakup

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From the 19th- to the mid 20th-century this was the most important professional job an uneducated woman could aspire to; the female equivalent of the butler. But we know very little about the women who filled these posts.

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Michael Colborne said her mood swings were quite frightening for a 19-year-old. They came from total despair''. Charles realised he was trapped in a mismatch, and that his fondness for her had not evolved into deeper feelings as he had hoped. He was protective of her and genuinely sorry for her, but when he felt suffocated by her possessiveness he tended to pull away. Her unhappiness in the first years of her marriage led to severe bulimia and her first visits to psychiatrists. As the New York Times reported in 1944, when Hague was trying to prevent reform of the state constitution: "Appealing to special interests whenever a seed of scepticism could be planted, the Mayor's forces succeeded in creating confusion . . . To his critics, the Hague tactic was simple yet vexingly difficult to contain. Its design, they charged, was to frighten one group and then another with sensational falsehoods - falsehoods that Hitler and Goebbels would admire because they were so difficult to nail down." Having joined the royal household in the 1930s, Marion "Crawfie" Crawford retired when Princess Margaret turned 20 and she herself was in her early 40s. The book is pieced together from diaries, letters and mentions in historical documents of the housekeepers of the grand houses. They mostly had terrible, downtrodden lives and lived in fear of their Mistresses firing them. They were not allowed private lives - husbands and children were forbidden. This was no Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey with a certain affection between the ever-grateful faithful retainers and the selfish though affectionate Them Upstairs.

It was September 1989, and Princess Diana was staying at her ancestral home of Althorp in Northamptonshire, England, when her fury for her stepmother boiled over. The royal, then 28, berated Countess Raine Spencer, who had married her father, Johnnie, 13 years earlier. Then she pushed her so hard, she fell down the stairs. I'm A Celebrity's Jamie Lynn Spears speaks out on her relationship with sister Britney, as she admits: 'Family's fight. Listen, we just do it better than most' Asked if he has created a distinctive new style for his party, the Tory leader replies modestly that there isn't yet "such a thing as Hagueism". As housekeeper to Prince Charles and Princess Diana at their Highgrove mansion from 1985 until the royal couple's 1992 separation, Wendy Berry witnessed the slow disintegration of what was initially christened a fairy tale marriage. To her, it was clear from the very beginning that these two people, each possessing singularly admirable qualities and capable of great affection, found it impossible to live together harmoniously. Dorthy Doar of Trentham Hall in the early 1800s and Sarah Wells of Uppark in the late 1800s were both married women. And it was unusual for married women to work as housekeepers in the 19th century. Their being married led in each case to why they were remembered, although the specific reasons were quite different. In Dorthy Doar’s case, a request for a six-weeks’ leave to have a baby led, after some turmoil, to her being expelled, and not in a nice way. After she left Trentham there is no further record to be found of her anywhere.

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I expected Camilla to be a presence in this book, but she barely appears. Aside from a couple of lunch parties, and afternoon visits to Charles when he badly broke his arm, she wasn't at Highgrove at this time. Berry notes the evenings when Charles seems to be slipping away to see her, but there weren't as many of those as expected. Diana's affair with James Hewitt took place at Highgrove, but he was in the military so was often away. Diana's concern for him and his safety was clear to the staff.

Strictly fans hit out at judge's scores for Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola as they wow with sizzling Argentine Tango and continue to fuel romance rumours Huw Edwards 'to leave BBC after being given inquiry findings' into his alleged behaviour following sex pic scandal After the uproar caused by Diana's allowing her friends intimate details of her marriage in a book and the subsequent controversy over Prince Charles's biography, Wendy Berry has decided to set the record straight with 'The Housekeeper's Diary'. Berry offers interesting tidbits, such as Charles still sleeps with his childhood teddy bear on his bed. He was unconcerned when his new dog peed on his bed: as Berry went to change the bedding, Charles told her to leave it and just give it a wipe! And belying Diana's picture of him as a distant, uncaring father, Berry describes him as doting and close to his sons. One of the saddest parts was when Diana would keep the boys from their father, telling Charles the boys would be eating in bed with her, while watching TV. She did this even on William's last night at home before boarding school. In another incident she kept the children for dinner in bed, and the next morning she took them away for breakfast in her bed too. Charles was very upset at being shut out like this, and tried to talk to Diana about it but she wouldn't. It's terrible to realize how Diana was repeating her own upbringing, where she was kept from her mother by her father.

Myleene Klass shares a blended family tribute to herfiancé as she thanks him for 'being the embarrassing dad who cheers the loudest for my children' Before getting into the stories of the women, there is a very poignant long introduction. This looks at the huge range of women who applied for just one job as a housekeeper, revealing how many were desperate for work and how limited the opportunities were. I found it a fascinating read, and enjoyed listening to the audiobook read by the author. She has a warm, expressive voice, and is good at doing different voices for the different characters. I did just notice one or two strange (to a British listener) pronunciations, possibly requested by Audible for the sake of listeners worldwide. Diana's dazzling public persona, her talent for disguise, the warmth, sweetness, affection and femininity she could turn on at will, that lulled those close to her into disbelieving that anything serious could possibly be wrong with her. I always used to think Diana would make a very good actress because she could play out any role she chose,'' her former nanny Mary Clarke some time ago wrote with considerable prescience. The book definitely shows how hard life was for these housekeepers, with their long hours, often gruelling physical work and competing demands - far beyond anything imagined in portrayals such as Downton Abbey. "I'm so tired," is a frequent cry, especially from Sarah Wells, who was already at retirement age when she took on her job at the great house Uppark. However, the women's personalities do remain rather shadowy, since few of their own writings survive (apart from diaries which are often little more than lists of tasks.)

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