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Sarah was the Fergusons’ second daughter, born on 15 October 1959. She was just
thirteen in 1972 when her mother left home, leaving her and her elder sister, Jane, in
the custody of her father. Susan Ferguson later married an Argentine polo-player,
Hector Barrantes, and went to live with him on his ranch in the Argentine. The
Fergusons’ marriage was a victim of the randy, glamorous world of polo, later depicted
in Jilly Cooper’s best-seller Riders. Ronald Ferguson could have walked straight out of
Cooper’s pages. Just like the Spencer children, the Ferguson girls were possessive of
their father and at first bitterly opposed to his second marriage in 1976, although they
later came round to it. Sarah, who so closely resembled him – not only in looks – was
particularly close to him. In 1985 she was a typical Sloane Ranger – as upper-middleclass
girls like herself had been dubbed – with a none-too-demanding job, no intellectual
interests and a range of friends like herself who said ‘Yah’ instead of ‘Yes’, gave parties
and often acted as chalet girls in winter ski resorts like Klosters and Verbier. Sarah was
unusual only in that she had a lover twenty-two years older than herself, racing driver
Paddy McNally, who showed no signs whatsoever of intending to marry her. Among
Sarah’s circle had been Lady Diana Spencer, whose wedding she had attended. There
were differences between the two girls; Diana was an earl’s daughter living in an
expensive flat in a millionaires’ area, The Boltons, while Sarah had no stately home in
the background and an overdraft at the bank. There were considerable character
differences too; Sarah Ferguson was flamboyant, outgoing, greedy for life and its
experiences, careless of appearances. She was a woman who would hurtle headlong
where angels fear to tread. Diana was her opposite in almost every way; nevertheless as
her marriage continued on its miserable downward path, she found in Sarah an ally. It
was Diana who had engineered an invitation to stay at Windsor for Ascot week in 1985
and she who had seen to it that Sarah sat next to Andrew at lunch in the state diningroom.
He fed her chocolate profiteroles and the romance was on.
By the new year 1986, when the Queen invited her to Sandringham, Sarah had finally
given up on Paddy McNally. It was only too obvious to anyone that Prince Andrew was
madly in love with her and they seemed well suited, both of them given to the kind of
boisterous bread-throwing antics which distinguished dinner-parties given by Sloane
Rangers and their male equivalents, the ‘Hooray Henrys’. There were differences in their
habits – Andrew neither smoked nor drank, Fergie did both, she was gregarious and a
real party-girl, while he preferred golf or a quiet evening in when he was at home. Her
sexual past and general behaviour certainly did not qualify her for membership of the
royal family under previous rules. (What, one wonders, would George V or Queen Mary
have thought of her?) ‘Sarah Ferguson’, Martin Charteris, who liked her despite
describing her as a ‘vulgarian’, pronounced on television, ‘was not cut out to be a royal
princess in this or any other age.’ As in the case of Diana, those courtiers who did know
her and her father well did not come forward to express their doubts. Elizabeth and the
other members of the Royal Family welcomed her as they had never welcomed Diana.
Elizabeth liked her high spirits and the fact that she was a country girl who would go
riding with her and who took to the outdoor life at Sandringham and Balmoral like a