Former Kiwi transforms Royal Family image

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 41

Former Kiwi transforms Royal Family image

A former Christ’s College pupil, S.A.S. war hero and personal assistant to the late Aristotle Onassis is being credited with transforming the staid Royal Family into the world’s greatest soap opera, the “New Zealand News U.K.” reports from London.

Nigel Neilson, a New Zealander who is now the London-based public relations expert, effectively appointed himself public relations consultant to the Prince of Wales, according to a book, “The Ultimate Family: The Making of the Royal House of Windsor,” published recently in Britain.

The author, John Pearson, former “Sunday Times” journalist turned novelist and historian, says of Mr Neilson; “I do hope this book finally and firmly establishes where you undoubtedly belong — among the few people who have played a real part in recreating the whole image of the modern Monarchy on which so much of its present popularity depends.” The Royal Family’s fortunes had declined to such an extent in the 1960 s that the loyalist “Sunday Telegraph” said: “The British Monarchy will not be swept away in anger, but it could be swallowed up in a great and growing yawn.” Mr Neilson recalls his reaction to this in the book: "I was angry at the way the media were treating Charles. He was being criminally undersold. “There was too much nonsense about a chinless wonder — and his ears, which are really no different from anybody else’s. I decided to do something about it” Mr Neilson offered a part-time job to an old friend, David Checketts. He had just been appointed Prince Charles’s personal equerry, a post he went on to hold for 13 years. The move was seen as a sort of “deal with the devil” as the Royal Family began to sell themselves to the press and television.

None of it was unfamiliar ground for Mr Neilson and his small exclusive Mayfair public relations firm of Neilson McCarthy. He had just pulled off another public relations coup — changing the image of the Greek shipping tycoon, Aristotle Onassis, in Britain as a “Greek shit with too much money” into a personal friend of Sir Winston Churchill and a man with whom British companies could do business. Using techniques such as arranging private dinner parties at his Westminster flat for top industrialists, bankers and the press to meet Prince Charles over drinki. and singsongs round

and guitar, Mr Neilson was able to launch the subsequent popularity of Prince Charles. He was also responsible for organising the first national radio interview with the Prince by Jack de Manio on the 8.8. C. Pearson writes: “It was clear by now that Neilson’s strategy was working better than anyone had dared to hope, and that the Prince was being ‘criminally undersold’ no longer.

His confidence was steadily increasing; the press were basking in the flattering treatment they were suddenly receiving from the Palace; and public attitudes towards the prince changed almost overnight "The Royal ears and chin forgotten, he had suddenly become what no other member of his family could hope to be. Funny, irreverent and not inclined to take himself too seriously,- he seemed firmly on the side of the youthful spirit of the sixties.”

In two years Mr Neilson and other image-makers had made such an impression that when it came round to Prince Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales, Pearson says: “Within a space of weeks, he had been projected as his family’s most popular and charismatic superstar, far surpassing the ‘Prince Charming’ image enjoyed by his great-uncle David during his period of greatest popularity as Prince of Wales.” After the success of launching Prince Charles, it came as little surprise that Neilson McCarthy should be chosen ahead of several other public relatins consultancies to promote the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Appeal Fund headed by Prince Charles. “The appeal raised more than £16.4 million — in itself a tribute to the Prince of Wales, the Queen and Neilson ‘McCarthy,” says Pearson. “After his work on the jubilee appeal, Neilson’s closest personal contact with the Royal family would come from the fact that he had sent his son Peter to school at Gordonstoun, where he became a contemporary and friend of Prince Andrew.

“A keen photographer, the young Neilson seemed to be following in celebrated footsteps when he took a portrait of Prince Andrew in full naval uniform, which was widely published on his twentyfirst birthday; he also organised the disco at Windsor Castle for the private birthday celebrations."

These days, Mr Neilson’s contact with the Royal Family is through Operation Drake, and organisation devoted to helping young people find jobs and of which Prince Charles is president ®he New Zealander is a <M#n-

cil member.

Mr Neilson’s publicity handout typically quotes an article describing him as “The Right Hand Man to the Powerful.” As well as actively promoting Onassis’s lavish hospitality to the aged Winston Churchill, he has learned much about the habits of the very rich and powerful that have helped him publically represent — and protect — such tycoons who today form many of his clients. His father was a Scottish army officer who moved to new Zealand after World War I. He bought Summerlee station at Cape Kidnappers which Nigel Neilson’s older brother, John, still runs. Nigel was seven at the time. He was sent to Hereworth School in Havelock North and then to Christ's College — he is president of the college’s old boys association in London.

At school he took up singing and acting at the expense of his academic career. He left New Zealand before his final examinations on a Blue Star line ship as a deck hand chipping rust off decks, to pursue an acting career in Britain. He soon made an impression on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and was awarded the Leverhulme scholarship. But the start of a promising West End career was interrupted by World War IL After a brief spell in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, he joined the Special Air Service.

He served with the French equivalent of the S.A.S. behind enemy lines in France and the Netherlands before being transferred back to the British S.A.S. in Norway almost at the end of the war.

Distinguished war service earned him the Military Cross and the French Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur and the Croix de Guerre avec Palme. After the war he returned to the West End, where his diverse talents found him work in cabaret, theatre and singing. He met his wife Pam, a successful Royal ballet dancer, in a West End production. Later Mr Neilson left the West End to work for the big advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, where — among other things — he attracted the New Zealand Meat Board account

Through Thompson’s he met Onassis and left in the early 1960 s to form Neilson McCarthy with his late partner, Ralph McCarthy, a former newspaper editor. .What is Nigel Neilson doing today? Neilson McCarthy has just joined one of Britain’s biggest communication companies, Lopex. Among their clients is Westland Helicopters ...