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friends, the elderly South African writer Laurens van der Post, author of The Lost World
of the Kalahari, which celebrated the myths of the bushmen. In the words of his
biographer, Charles now began to undertake a voyage of spiritual enquiry away from
the cultural certainties into which he had been born. Van der Post apparently detected a
‘missing dimension’ in the course of education and training plotted for the Prince by his
parents and his father in particular. ‘I think one should be outward bound the inner
way,’ he told Charles, who now began to record his dreams for his guru to interpret. Van
der Post also proposed a seven-week ‘retreat’ into the Kalahari desert for 1977, a dotty
scheme which was quickly sat upon by the Foreign Secretary, Tony Crosland, much to
the relief of the Palace. Charles found his personal guru in the Old Man of Lochnagar,
the character who, in the stories he had invented for his younger brothers, lived in a
cave on the brooding mountain above Balmoral, and he developed a belief in
reincarnation. This sort of thing did not appeal to his parents; Elizabeth with her
traditional Anglican Christian faith regarded it as yet another example of her son’s
waywardness. It was another form of rebellion against the narrow certainties which had
hitherto shaped his life. In 1979 he became bewitched by a young Indian woman, former
wife of the film director John Huston, who introduced him to Buddhism and to a book
called The Path of the Masters, a guide to the spiritual wisdom of the Eastern gurus. At
the age of thirty, the future pillar of the Established Church of England was wallowing
in the kind of mystical experience which most people had been through in the 1960s. His
parents and their friends were unaware of the extent to which he was infatuated with
his new spiritual guide and her guidance which led him towards vegetarianism and
against the killing of animals. ‘We were surprised when he suddenly gave up shooting,’
a member of Philip’s Norfolk sporting circle said. The Prince’s household, however,
became thoroughly alarmed. The Hon. Edward Adeane, son of the Queen’s former
Private Secretary, and now the Prince’s Private Secretary, told friends, ‘it’s got to be
stopped’; fortunately for their peace of mind it did.
Charles’s emotional life was equally wayward and a source of concern to his parents.
Since 1970 there had been only one woman in his heart, Camilla Shand. Camilla was a
sparky, confident blonde, eighteen months older than he was and already sexually
experienced. Although not titled, she was well-connected; the Shands were what was
called in those days ‘a good county family’. Her father, Major Bruce Shand, was a wellto-do
ex-cavalry officer and wine merchant who listed hunting and gardening as his
‘recreations’ and acted as Vice Lieutenant of Sussex. Her mother was a daughter of Lord
Ashcombe, descendant of the great builder Thomas Cubitt, who built most of Belgravia.
The most significant fact about Camilla’s ancestry was that her great-grandmother on
her mother’s side, the Hon. Mrs George Keppel, had been Edward VII’s longest-serving
mistress. Camilla had always been fascinated by Alice Keppel, who was to be her role
model in her relationship with the Prince of Wales. Alice was witty, down-to-earth and
knew how to keep men happy just as her great-granddaughter did. Camilla and Charles
shared the same sense of humour and passion for the Goon Show – their nicknames for
each other, ‘Gladys’ and ‘Fred’, are Goon Show names – and a love of country life, riding