THE WOMAN IN WHITE

She came to the point faster than I expected.
“And what did you do on the tour?”
It was tempting, in that moment, to lay out the entire story, to extend my seconds in the sun for as long as possible and ensure my absolutely critical part in the entire venture was recognised at the highest level.
Instead, I kept it short and – what ultimately proved to be – sweet.
We had in fact spent some months preparing for this moment, along with the whole three days of moments that preceded it.  No, it wasn’t me, but  ‘we.’  And the ‘me’ part was actually pretty damn small.
Alice Springs had greeted us with an official reception about ten days earlier, a get-together of all the officials assigned to the six weeks in Australia; some were protocol and others transport, some security, and others like me, communications. Media liaison if you like.
It was my first trip to the Alice and the Red Centre. It was a disappointment, and not even red: a once-in-ten-years rain had rendered Alice green from horizon to horizon.  As for the reception, I didn’t get close to the centre of the action. Nor was there any sign of a babe in arms called William.  
Anyway, I had work to do back in tiny Tasmania.
The job had come to me in a pick-a-straw kind of way.  One of three comms staffers working to the state Premier of the time, assignments occasionally arrived in a conversation that began with some version of ‘you don’t look too busy’ and ended up with me at my IBM Selectric late at night.
Other than to extend my media wrangling skills to dealing with a sizeable crush of British and local media there wasn’t anything much in the way of an accompanying job description.  I decided to go active and set about creating one.  
With a thoroughly vetted itinerary from the Chief of Protocol (a nice man called Leo) I dug out a slew of information about the geographic elements of the tour – even a solid bit of automotive research on the Daimler that would serve as their primary vehicle.
I wrote up a hefty 80 page compendium of the three days, carefully typed and re-typed on the IBM, then the epitome of office machinery. The work would serve as a solid reference base for the media horde about to descend on an island that is always green, horizon to horizon.
And by focusing on the facts, a dry recitation of where they’d stay, go, see and stop, I managed to keep some distance, some semblance of sanity, between me and the brouhaha that lay just ahead.  It was, I told myself, just a job.
On the top I typed:  Tour of their Royal Highnesses, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, March 30-April 1, 1983.
It began with an airport arrival, a motorcade and then a trip into town on the Governor’s motoryacht, the ‘Egeria.’
For the length of the tour, south to north and back again, out came the crowds and kids with flowers and flags, waves and cheers—everybody caught up in a crush to see a newly minted English princess. Beautifully planned and organised, everything ticked over like clockwork.
Almost. There was one moment, a day later.
At the Maritime College in Launceston, the side wall of a massive indoor pool has been mocked up to look like a ship.  We’re there, on a platform some 15 metres above the water to see an exercise, an evacuation of the vessel into the water below.
There’s shouting, whistles and klaxons and flashing lights and lifeboats being lowered and god knows what else. Then the overhead lights go out.
In the sputtering semi-dark, my attention is drawn away from the action and noise to the area immediately in front of me, where there’s a slight whoosh of air and a thump.  An English voice eventually pipes up and asks, somewhat apologetically: “Would someone mind awfully turning the lights back on?”
The explanation for the lights going off, we discover later, is what we were there to see was actually a night-time exercise. It was a rare mistake in a meticulously planned schedule.  
There isn’t an explanation however, for what was in front of me as the overheads came on again. The future king of England was covered by a rugby scrum of security, police officers in plain clothes. That would explain the whoosh of air.
But at the edge of the viewing platform is Diana, Princess of Wales.  She is in all white and entirely alone.
Such, I assumed, were the instructions to the security detail. For my part, I was happy enough we’d not had space for the media on that platform on that day.  The scene, brief and befuddled, was, at best, awkward.
The matter wasn’t mentioned again.
There are photos taken over the three days where I’m clearly in combat mode, the veins in my neck and arms standing out, close to shoving someone’s camera up their British backside. But mostly I answer the media’s questions as best I can, referring to the 80 pages of notes I’d provided each of them.
I’d earned some cooperation early in the schedule, at the official reception in a ballroom of Wrest Point Hotel. It was then the only space large enough to pack in the few hundred dignitaries deemed worthy of the occasion that was the first visit to Tasmania of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The media contingent was arranged in a chevron ahead of the stage, a triple-row affair with the first line on the floor, the centre sitting and the rear standing. That way, every photographer, cameraman and journalist in the media pool got a clear view as the official group moved through the room.
Charles and Diana, the Premier and party were closing on the platform as a short gentleman in the front row of the pool suddenly stood up. Behind him, the ranks of his colleagues started to shift to compensate, the careful formation breaking apart.
I leaned forward and spoke with one of the security guys, explaining that I thought the gentleman in the front row was in need of some air. There was a blur of movement as Mr. Short was escorted out and the triple-row chevron snapped back into shape. I breathed again.
A little later, Charles’s media guy (HRH also has one dedicated security man, a British bobby) turns out to be seriously laid back. He’s worked for Pierre Trudeau, seen more of the world than me.  Over a pack of Marlboroughs and multiple drinks, he encourages me to chill out.  I learn enough that I don’t need to ask why Diana doesn’t have her own media or security person.  
Nonetheless, I can’t quite get my head around the media. Not then, not now.
The media on the tour -- the British more so than the Australians – is a fermenting madness. Some kind of feedback loop has developed between the clamour of the crowd and the media’s closely honed sense of what sells papers, magazines and TV news.  More, more.
They are intrusive, constant and unrelenting. Motorized camera shutters fire off like the rattle of a high-speed tram -- close, deafening, metallic, frightening.  It’s clear the woman on which they are trained is uncomfortable, unready for this, unable to relax for a moment.  
Her every breathing moment is captured, every eye movement, squint and smile. Even the non-events get scrutiny.  “They came ashore… the Princess somewhat gingerly,” says a TV announcer.  “She doesn’t have too much seagoing training.”  He divined that from one step on the dock.
Every glance and gesture, toss of the hair, flick of an eyelash, furrowing of a brow, is grist for the mill, chewed over and then filed for exhaustive analysis later. Her every word and footstep is being recorded and tracked. The photographs will emerge for years to come, their memory dismissed, their context distorted.
Had she a media advisor, someone able to push back, to demand space,  privacy…  But she doesn’t. She has Charles, who does have that kind of experience, that kind of backup, that kind of heft. But they are here to see her, and he knows it.  She knows it too.
Who in their right mind would want to live like this? I ask myself.
It’s now the last hours of the last day. We, the contingent of local officials who’ve made the tour run like clockwork (or stop, in the case of the local trains) form a reception line at Government House, the vice-regal mansion on the city’s edge.
We’re there to be thanked for our efforts, presented with a signed and framed picture of the two of them.  Shortly after, I’d be plunged back into political life,  dealing with a stream of prosaic media questions about government actions and inaction.
It’s a tall-ceilinged but small room. Charles and Diana are flanked by a single uniformed equerry. There are no cameras; all is quiet. My turn comes and we shake hands as I’m introduced. Charles spoke, but it was Diana’s words I recall.
“And what did you do on the tour?” she asked.
“I was responsible for communications, the media stuff, ma’am,” I said, remembering the correct form of address and to pronounce it ‘ma’am’ like ‘jam.’  “Mostly, trying to get the press to keep some distance.”
“Ahh…” said Diana, laughing.  “We usually use tank traps and barbed wire.”
“I’ll be sure to incorporate those next time you come,” I assured her. She smiled. It was warm, genuine, even a moment of understanding.
The interview, the tour, the moment, was over.