of official accommodation, had been exiled to the nearest five-star American hotel.
The shivering was not just caused by the cold. The Ambassador’s anecdotes, though intended to amuse and inform, had also contained warnings about the pitfalls awaiting us in the protocol departments of our later destinations in Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
I felt oppressed by our responsibilities, especially my own. I was scared stiff, in fact. I have never needed much excuse to indulge in a good bout of worrying and it often has the beneficial side effect of displacing my habitual lethargy. This time, however, I realized I had better reason than usual to feel apprehensive. A tour could be judged as successful against a host of different criteria – there were as many opinions as there were observers and any credit could therefore be widely distributed. No such latitude applied to the unsuccessful tour. I knew that if the verdict on our Gulf expedition was unfavourable, in the scramble to avoid the ensuing derision I would be at a disadvantage. Royal displeasure is an unstable pyrotechnic, but I had already observed that it favoured soft targets – and I was pretty sure that they came no softer than the apprentice equerry.
Even more worrying was the discovery that this regal wrath could be directed almost at will by those whose domestic responsibilities kept them closest to the royal person at its less royal moments. It may be true that no man is a hero to his valet, but it was a law of Palace survival that only a hero (and a foolhardy one at that) would disoblige a royal valet and expect to escape the inevitable explosion. I now had almost unlimited power to disoblige valets and their ilk. One poisoned word from them would drop me deep in the mire. Two poisoned words, and I might as well run away to sea, assuming the Navy would have me back.
The reason we gave to sceptical hosts when they politely queried our extensive and precise domestic requirements was that to give of their best our employers had to feel that a little piece of KP was awaiting them at the end of an arduous day’s hot and dusty engagements. In this need for domestic predictability they perhaps echoed the travel-weary businessman’s preference for hotels whose location in the world is easily guessed from the name given to the bar, or the bartender.
Both being rather exacting in their personal requirements, the Prince and Princess induced an understandable nervousness in the valet and dresser, who would bear the brunt of any shortcomings. They in turn developed powers of critical invective that would be the envy of Michelin inspectors. Their judgement in such matters was absolute and would be shared sooner or later by the Prince and Princess. It was thus the equerry’s over-riding task on the recce to ensure that they never had cause to exercise their awesome power to turn cold toast (or a sticking window, or a hard mattress) into a tour-wrecking catastrophe.
As I dozed fitfully on my own lumpy Embassy mattress, I scared myself into a cold sweat with visions of royal domestic disaster. Missing baggage, inadequate transport, unpopular room allocations, unacceptable food … the list was endless. It was so unfair. Luck seemed to play such a huge part in deciding my success or failure. Every time – as the dream descended into nightmare – the vision ended with a posse of iron-wielding valets pursuing me, mouthing damning judgement on the arcane arrangements over which I had sweated blood.
I greeted my travelling companions blearily at breakfast. Their tasks all seemed so straightforward by comparison. No wonder they had all slept so well. Then I noticed John Riddell’s expression. The normal half-amused, donnish detachment was missing, replaced by a look of unusual preoccupation. It might have been the Kuwaiti version of an English breakfast staring back at him from his plate, but I preferred to believe, with relief, that he shared some of my anxiety.
In the exotic surroundings of the desert state – and with the excuse of jet lag and general mental disorientation – it was a struggle to remember that the basic rules of recceing were basically unchanged from those I was learning to apply in more mundane surroundings in Britain. To counteract this, I acquired the knack of dismissing my surroundings, however diverting, in order to concentrate on the simple staples of timing, route, press, protocol and security.
Begun as an act of self-preservation, it became a habit that eventually passed for professionalism. Sadly, it also meant that I was often oblivious to which great event or personality I was trying to organize, save for the need to contrive my courtier’s patter into a form I judged least provocative to the local culture. It is only now, years afterwards and without the benefit of even the sketchiest diary, that this lid of detachment has been edged aside by memories which have stood the test of time. Having remained so vivid, they are probably the only ones worth having – a thought that somewhat justifies my slothful scorn of the assiduous diarist.
Assiduous was not a description I felt I could apply to my performance on the Kuwait recce, except perhaps in comparison with our delegation as a whole. I was probably applying attitudes still shaped by the demands of the Navy, however, and had yet to realize fully the deceptive way in which the courtier’s imperturbable outer calm could be mistaken for ennui.
Against this background, you can perhaps imagine the trepidation with which I set off after breakfast to recce the Salaam guest palace. In an ominous development, none of my colleagues felt able to tear themselves away from their own duties in order to accompany me. The message was clear: this was definitely the equerry’s job and I was welcome to it.
Salaam means ‘welcome’ and nobody could doubt the sincerity of the Kuwaitis’ hospitality. Nonetheless, as I stood in the grandiose marble hallway of the Salaam palace my senses slowly alerted me to the fact that however grand the title, and however warm the welcome, our temporary home was going to give the entourage plenty on which to sharpen their critical faculties.
The livid green carpet emitted an unidentifiable musky odour, which was taken up and queasily repeated in the chemical whiff I caught from voluminous drapes and curtains that billowed in the air conditioning. Insecticide, I thought. Drains, I thought, as I checked the bathrooms. What’s that? I thought, as I peered into the subterranean kitchens.
Circular in design and labyrinthine in its floor plans, the guest palace offered a bewildering range of permutations when it came to allocating rooms to the tour party. There was, of course, a formula to guide ignorant equerries in this exacting science. Distance from the royal bedroom was not arbitrarily assigned and paid no regard at all to what an outsider might think the appropriate order by seniority. It was your job not your apparent status that determined your room.
Some, such as PPOs and valets, had to be close by. Most of the rest could be parked in an outer zone from which a short sprint could bring them to the door of the royal apartments, where they could cool their heels awaiting the summons. Others still were banished to the Intercontinental hotel down the road. These were the true fortunates, unless you counted royal proximity above reliable plumbing, crisp sheets, a minibar and direct-dial phone. Few did.
The days of the recce passed in a flurry of planning visits to clinics, palaces, museums, crèches, schools and even a camel race track. Everything had to be planned in minute detail – the protocol, the press, the security and the transport. Everything became blurred by fatigue and desert sand; and by the aftereffects of an intensive round of ex-pat entertainment. Down the Gulf the pattern was repeated, in Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Punch-drunk with planning and giddy with jet lag, I returned to London and managed to sell the draft programme successfully to the Princess, even though at times it threatened to remain just a confusing, technicolour jumble of memories.
It was six weeks before I returned to the Middle East. This time I was in charge of the small advance party that flew out ahead of the Prince and Princess to check on last-minute arrangements. To my dismay, instead of a few minor adjustments, I discovered that the programme needed quite major surgery. Since the recce, our hosts had made various ‘improvements’ which, though undoubtedly well intended, nevertheless posed a serious threat to the delicate structure of compromises that made up the final version approved by the Prince and Princess.
The Ambassador and his staff worked heroically to explain this and placate our puzzled hosts. At last a compromise was reached which left our original programme broadly recognizable, but I was still apprehensive as I prepared my uniform for the royal arrival next day. As if sensing my mood, several