Diana will keep me young, says Prince

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 6

Diana will keep me young, says Prince

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GRANIA FORBES,

British Press Association court correspondent London Prince Charles disclosed yesterday that he proposed "to Lady Diana Spencer over a private dinner in the sitting room of his apartment at Buckingham Palace just before she went to Australia on holiday earlier this month. In an exclusive interview ■. »ith me, in that same private sitting room and with his radiant bride-to-be at his sidk?, a beaming Prince Charles said: “I asked Diana just' before she went to Australia three weeks ago, I wanted to give her a chance to tlbink about it — to think if it -was all going to be too awftit” At that point Lady Diana' chipped in, “Oh, I never .had any. doubt about it?

So tlie matter was settled there and then, and the difficult part, said Prince Charles, was for the couple to keep the excitement to themselves.

Although many have suggested that Prince Charles and Lady Diana have known each other since childhood, neither can’ ready remember meeting before November, 1977 — the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Lady Diana said: “Charles came to shoot. He was really a friend of my sister Lady Sarah, then.’’ Prince Charles said he remembered Lady Diana as “a splendid 16-year-old.” and added: “I remember thinking what fun she was then.”

The young couple, obviously very much in love, said their romance began when Lady Diana went to Balmoral last July to help her sister, Lady Jtane, with her first baby. “We began to reailise then that there was something in it,” said Prince Charles. He then revealed the closely guarded secret that Lady Diana returned later fn the year to Scotland, to stay at the Queen Mother’s home, Birkhall, to be near the Prince.

“The whole thing was planned like a military operation,” said Prince Chari es.

They have not yet decided where they will live after their marriage. “I only have two rooms here and a bedroom, so it will obviously be difficult to stay here for very longsaid the Prince, adding that they would make their mam base at his Glciucestershire home, Highgrove. Asked if she had got the house organised, Lady Diana said with a grin: “Not quite, vet” and the Prince added: “It’s just like camping. We’ve only got one room decorated downstairs, , an d the bedroom organised. Otherwise everything is being painted. There s nothing there yet — no curtains, carpets or furniture, nothing?’ The Prince said: “Diana will certainly keep me voung — you are only t> as bld as you think you are. He said Lady Diana would make a very good Princess of Wales. “I am sure she will be very, very good. And he added: She will be twenty soon, and I was about that age when I started. It’s obviously difficult to start with, but you just have to plunge in.” Lady Diana was more cautious. “I will just take it as it comes,” she said. > Prince Charles and Lady Diana seemed breathlessly happy at the news that their engagement could at last be made public, and the only word both could think of to sum up the situation was Prince Charles and Lady Diana feel they have a lot in common. “Diana is a great outdoor-loving sort of person,” he said. For her part, Lady Diana said: “We both love music and dancing, and we both have the same sense of humour.”

“You’ll definitely need that," said the Prince with a laugh.

The only interest that they perhaps don’t share is a love of horse riding. “I fell off a horse and lost my nerve,” said Lady Diana. Lady Diana said that the difference of 12 years between their ages did not matter.

“I have never thought about the age gap," she said although she conceded “I always ganged up with Prince Andrew.” Lady Diana’s father, Lord Spencer, said yesterday that Prince Charles had asked his permission to marry. “I wondered what he would have said if I had said “No,” Lord Spencer said in a BBC television interview. He was “absolutely delighted” at the news. He knew of it last week and if had been “very difficmt to keen it a secret,” he said. Se earl added: “She’s a very good-natured girl. Publicity doesn’t worry her. She’ll take it all in her stride. She’s very practical and very down to earth, and a very good housewife.’ Lady Diana, now formally under royal protection, will be staying at Clarence House with the Queen Mother for the time being.. Then she will be given an apartment at Kensington Palace until the wedding. Many girls have found themselves lined up in the Prince Charles marriage stakes in the past, but for a variety of reasons few got beyond the starting post. Under the 1701 Act of Settlement the heir to the Throne must marry a Protestant. There has, however, been strong speculation that he would not and that Princess Marie Astrid, of Luxemburg, a Roman Catholic from one of the few remaining reigning royal houses, would be his bride. Other girls linked with the Prince include Lady Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah, and JanWard, a divorcee, both ol whom are said to have fallen out of favour when they gossiped to the press. In 1976, Davina Sheffield, a pretty blonde cousin oi Lord McGowan, was frequently seen with the Prince but the publicity seemed to irk her.

Some newspapers say that earlier this year Charles proposed to Anna Wallace, a fox-hunting former debutante. But she had a past — other lovers.