Andrew, The Abbey, Fergie and The Fraudster

[CathyorClaire]

Last thread closed so I thought I'd amalagamate the latest antics for further discussion.

Also wanted to reply to this post near the end:

Perhaps the opportunity to contribute via cleaning jobs will soon arise for them, perhaps even faster than Andrew imagines, if he is up to knowing how to turn on a vacuum that is

He allegedly sent for a maid to climb four sets of stairs to close his curtains. I think he'd struggle with a vacuum

Off to read up on the entirely unsurprising reports on links to the fraudster.

It was @mpsw. Hugely over egged by the media, men who were there joke about it.

Sarah York got peanuts for her settlement , £500k for a house and £15k a year as an allowance from Andrew. Thats quite humiliating really

I'm pretty sure they paid for the girls' education too, but why was the amount humiliating? Most women could buy a house and get along just fine on that - especially at an age when they could work themselves - but it seems Sarah expected more and hanging around Andrew's been the way to get it

On Andrew's honours, though, I believe the phrase used was that they'd been "handed back to the Queen". So if we take it that she controls them (as the fount of all honour and all that) what's to stop her dripfeeding them back to him?

I’ve told you @Roussette**

Sorry Blossom I missed that
I can't remember every single thing that every single person says! I was just musing on it, that's all

Interestingly I did read something somewhere that said he was despised and deeply disliked during the Falklands war and that his senior officers often had great trouble finding someone to be his pilot/co pilot

@Blossomtoes

It was *@mpsw*. Hugely over egged by the media, men who were there joke about it.

Women who were there know about it too.

There weren’t any women deployed during the Falklands War. There was one war artist, Linda Kitson, and a few women on Ascension Island.

Blossomtoes I’m really surprised that there were no women deployed during the Falklands war. What about nurses?

Thing is with Savile, his activities were an open secret among various circles. It stretches credulity to think that not one of Charles' or even the wider royals' army of advisors and gofers hadn't heard the rumours and failed to advise.

@Roussette

And to pile on the disgrace for the RF... Netflix today releases 'Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story"

20 years of letters between Charles and JS, he appointed him an unofficial adviser to the RF, and JS drew up a handbook for all the RF to use.

I am just not sure how naive and stupid they all can be, I just don't get it. I know people were duped, but for so long??

I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg where Charles' involvement with Savile was concerned until now.

The private dinners and requests for marriage guidance we knew about was bad enough but twenty years of correspondence and a royal handbook is news to me.

Shocking.

How on earth can we be expected to trust this man's judgement as monarch?

@Malibuismysecrethome

Blossomtoes I’m really surprised that there were no women deployed during the Falklands war. What about nurses?

There were apparently nurses on the hospital ships outside the exclusion zone but they’d be in no position to know about Andrew’s war effort. Astonishing though it is, women have only been deployed in combat zones since 2018.

There were apparently nurses on the hospital ships outside the exclusion zone but they’d be in no position to know about Andrew’s war effort. Astonishing though it is, women have only been deployed in combat zones since 2018.

But people talk so it’s quite possible they heard all sorts.

Putting aside Savile’s criminal activities, who in their right mind would use him as a marriage counsellor. He never married and was really rather odd.

There as in serving in relevant roles at the time, so with direct contemporaneous experience and significant overlap. Not all involved in an an operation are front line boots on the ground. Sorry, my bad for excessive brevity.

I know what I say doesn't fit the narrative. You can believe me or not.

I’m sure I’ve seen a photo of Saville in a green kilt as a guest at Balmoral.

Astonishing though it is, women have only been deployed in combat zones since 2018

That's just not true.

Because not all roles in conflict zones are infantry.

You might be thinking of these, Malibuismysecrethome - though Savile apparently had a place of his own at Glencoe, so whether these were taken there or at Balmoral isn't clear

I’m sure I’ve seen a photo of Saville in a green kilt as a guest at Balmoral

It's a known fact he was allowed to come and go as he pleased to BP.

Bit like GMaxwell.... oh hang on, you'd think someone would've learned a lesson with JS. But no.

£500k was also worth a lot more in 1996 than it is now.

Puzzledandpissedoff those are the ones! I don’t think PC would be visiting him but I suppose the photos could have been taken at the Highland Games.

I'm pretty sure they paid for the girls' education too, but why was the amount humiliating? Most women could buy a house and get along just fine on that true but we are not talking about an average family with median income here are we? the least they could have bought her a nice house since her girls live with her too, < presumably they lived with her most of the time> She rented somewhere near royal lodge for some years then moved in with Andrew few years later .

£500k is not much really even back then and I’m not talking Kensington prices ,a quick search showed houses in Windsor close by we’re around £660k back in late 90s.
Ditto 15k p.a not that much back then .
I can’t think of anyone I know who’d be ok with this.

^ I agree it wasn’t a good settlement but Fergie didn’t have to accept it did she.

£500k is not much really even back then and I’m not talking Kensington prices ,a quick search showed houses in Windsor close by we’re around £660k back in late 90s.
Ditto 15k p.a not that much back then .
I can’t think of anyone I know who’d be ok with this

Remember we don’t know the full details of the settlement, but £500k could definitely buy a comfortable house in the South East in the mid nineties.

£15k is fine for somebody who is expected to work, although admittedly not enough to pay somebody not to work - but again we don’t know the details.

Whether it is fair or not depends on what Andrew owns and earns - not a lot in his own right from the sounds of thing, but then the choice is to cut your cloth accordingly. Certainly there was never any danger of any of them not being fed, clothed or housed, and there still isn’t.

You can’t say the same for the rest of the U.K.

I've just watched some of the Jimmy Savile documentary on Netflix. What a thoroughly abhorrent and evil person he was.

To be fair to the royal family, JS managed to fool most people he came in to contact with; senior policemen, all of his bosses at the BBC, Margaret Thatcher when she was PM, hospital and prison authorities and even heavyweight journalists who when they heard a whiff of a rumour and asked around, couldn't find any proof. It wasn't until child abuse became recognised as such among the general public - the first specialist police unit combatting child sex abuse was only set up in 1994 - that some of his victims found the strength to speak up.

One jaw dropping part of the episodes I have watched so far was a clip of Prince Andrew on a visit to Lockerbie shortly after the Pan Am flight had been blown up by terrorists and had landed on the village. His comments were so inappropriate and downright stupid that I actually couldn't believe what I was hearing. It comes across on film as even worse than described here:

www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1317194/prince-andrew-duke-york-royal-family-news-lockerbie-queen-elizabeth-ii-spt

And then the documentary cuts to a letter from Prince Charles to Jimmy Savile, asking him for urgent PR advice . Oh and please could he help with Fergie too?

Prince Andrew, having received the education he did, and having watched his parents and elder siblings for many years, and presumably having been briefed by officials before his visit, would have honestly had to work pretty hard to make such crass and spectacularly insensitive comments when he had been sent there to sympathise and offer encouragement. Even if he had stood there and said nothing it would have been an improvement! Any one of us could and would have done better. And there it is, an argument against hereditary monarchy and privilege, if ever there was one!

Comeonin Thank you for the resumé of the JS programme. I will watch it when I can.
Nothing surprises me, to be honest. I know a huge amount of people were duped but there were also people who knew and tried to blow the whistle and were thwarted at every attempt. Yet again, the aides and advisers for the RF were MIA.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/01/the-day-i-thwarted-jimmy-savile-mark-lawson-on-trying-to-stop-britains-worst-sex-offender

An interesting read... from someone who had contact with JS over the years.

Some (not all) members of the RF do have a knack of latching on to unsuitable people, Peter Ball, Savile, Epstein and many others. Perhaps because they don't have contact with ordinary people, just sycophants, their gut feelings and inner senses are stunted or something.

I'm old, and I can honestly say, my gut feeling about people is usually right. Funnily enough, in real life for me, this has just been proved with someone me and my DH have had to deal with for a year, I won't go into details, but we stupidly gave someone the benefit of the doubt, and we were wrong, what I said about this person on day one and my misgivings have been proven right...

Hey ho... I'm rambling

@comeoninandclosethedoor It's interesting that the article emphasises the lack of empathy in PA's comments at Lockerbie. I think that's what came across most forcefully in the Emily Maitlis interview, when he was asked whether he regretted the association with Epstein. It genuinely didn't occur to him in that moment to even pay lip service towards empathising with Epstein's victims.

Some (not all) members of the RF do have a knack of latching on to unsuitable people, Peter Ball, Savile, Epstein and many others. Perhaps because they don't have contact with ordinary people, just sycophants, their gut feelings and inner senses are stunted or something

Or it's the other way round, and they target the Royals? It's a way to the establishment, respectability etc

And yes I agree the Royals don't have normal friendships, because they don't get to meet people on a 'normal' footing.

Rousette there is no mention in the article that the Sex Pistols reported Saville and were subsequently banned by the BBC. I think it is more a case of birds of a feather flock together.
I don’t for one moment believe these people are that naive.