Omid Scobie Endgame PART 5

[Mymilkshakebringsallthepapstomycar]

A continuing civilised and enjoyable discussion of all things relating to Endgame. Please keep posts on topic - I do not want to have to invoke Ross Gellar again!

Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/4957618-omid-scobie-endgame-part-4?page=1

Me too. Visiting time beckons. As does the hairy one.

Who also pokes to announce her presence. Laters. 🌱

👋 @ArcaneWireless.

Going back to the last thread, and George VI copying a guests 'incorrect' use of cutlery so they weren't embarrassed - apparently Prince Philip also ate with his fingers when Mrs Tebbit, who was disabled in the IRA Brighton bomb and couldn't use cutlery, came to lunch.

Just going back to this from the previous thread-

“I doubt Kate was offered an equerry [for guidance],” the author claims a friend told the Duchess of Sussex.

Is the inference then that Kate was offered better & therefore Meghan should also be?

So it was insulting to be offered an Equerry?

I suspect Equerries and senior staff know more about eitiquette than the RF - because they have had to learn it instead of growing into it, and also not having the leeway family members have to change the rules.

I've heard this story before, it really was a lovely thing to do !

Maybe she didn't know what an equerry was?

Can someone explain the background here?

I have to be honest I am uncomfortable that these stories are now leaking out as it feels like there is a lot of manipulation going on. It isn’t right that someone who was doing their job is now being used by the media (and others) without regard for their wellbeing.

It’s one thing to analyse and debate the different versions of OS’s books and the discrepancies with H & M statements, interviews, books and Netflix series it’s quite another to drag a third party who can’t answer back into the debate.

I’ve always found this photo interesting. Prince Harry is in the family fold and Prince William is isolated and looking into the family unit with a touch of hostility almost. Is anyone else able to interpret this portrait?

Glad you found us. Hope your son is feeling better soon.

Many thanks @Mymilkshakebringsallthepapstomycar 👍

That’s misleading

She had support mentoring from former equerry to HMQM Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (who by that time was Private Secretary to both William and Harry) - and that would have started quietly before the announcement of the engagement

Edited to add: for example Jamie L-P accompanied the Middleton family to William’s passing out parade

I think Harry and Meghan were two people in a particular frame of mind who met at at time when only disaster would ensue.

Harry: desperate to settle down, flailing about for purpose when W&K were finding theirs and starting a family, also a spoiled and entitled brat who wouldn't follow guidance for just/unjust cause

Meghan: hustled her entire adult life to reach heights she'd dreamt of since girlhood, seen and deployed every trick in every book to get where she was, met Harry and saw him as a golden ticket.

Harry, eager to bag Meghan, over-promised: we'll do this and that, don't worry I can get him/her to do whatever I want, you're amazing and I love your vision for a future for me, you remind me of my mother.

Meghan: everything you're offering me is what I've been looking for, I'm going to be #1 FINALLY, I can make it all happen if you just believe in me and only me.

Meanwhile, advisors and agents and PR reps (all paid, all personally motivated to fluff up H&M because they'll get a cut) are whispering words like "$100m deal", "world's most glamourous couple", "worth $1bn", "$1m per Instagram post" into their ears. Oprah wants them, Beyonce and Jay-Z line up to shake their hands. Palace staff are there to do things for them that they'd had to do themselves (Meghan, at least). Designers are throwing clothes and goodies their way. Journalists are all over them. Acres of newsprint written about them, photos everywhere. They barely spend a few months in the same place at the same time, then engagement (with $56,000 dress for a photoshoot for her), then royal wedding preceded by family drama, then HMQ this and W&K that, then housing, then pregnancy, then then then...

They lost their heads. Got caught up in it all, believed everyone's and their own BS, let their egos swell - and here they are. Two kids, largely disdained, exiled, no means of sustaining themselves financially to the level they need and want, estranged from all family and many friends, having revealed themselves for the unintelligent, not-as-wily-as-they-thought, vainglorious, messed up adults they are. You almost feel sorry for them, but they chose this and actively chose to ignore those knew better.

I think William looks sad in that portrait not hostile. It was probably boredom. I wonder if the artist painted from a photo or how much sitting was required. I can’t imagine the corgis being able to stay still in those poses so there must have been a photo involved.

It was to commemorate the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday. I wonder if the artist completely directed the placement of the different royals or if he let them have some input.

Quite agree, but it was Omid Scobie who revealed this in Endgame. Its certainly not a "leak" from the RF.

She had support mentoring from former equerry to HMQM Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (who by that time was Private Secretary to both William and Harry) - and that would have started quietly before the announcement of the engagement

Yes I know but what I'm wondering is what was the point of the statement?

What is is trying to say/prove?

That Meghan was hard done by in being offered an Equerry?

I think they were definitely badly advised and encourage by American PR specialists who didn’t understand the difference between celebrity popularity/notoriety and royal popularity.

Imagine you are Meghan’s agent. Your job is to hustle for her - get her jobs, endorsements, PR opportunities. PR pitching is really hard work - for lower level celebrities - not very well know like Meghan was - the agent will have been used to really trying to push her out there and call in favours, getting loads of no back. Suddenly people are coming to the agent and begging for time with Meghan - Oprah wants her, designers and companies are throwing freebies and products her way. It’s an agents dream.

But like Meghan and to my surprise Harry the US teams had not understood that a lot of the attention was both because of the shiny newness of a new royal couple and about the role itself not the individuals.

I’m sure her PR people couldn’t understand why thousands of people coming to see the couple on engagements and cheering for them didn’t translate into celebrity appeal once they left the royal family.

I agree too, poor man. I hope the journalists leave him alone. OS should apologise for dragging him into this.

*What is is trying to say/prove?

That Meghan was hard done by in being offered an Equerry?*

If she was then that's pretty much a direct line to the Queen she was offered.

It’s certainly been a whirlwind and it’s astonishing how much has happened in a relatively short space of time. I remember when they first announced their intention to leave thinking fair play and genuinely wishing them all the best, but at the same time feeling quite perplexed that M just didn’t appear to have given herself or people around her a chance to settle into things. Particularly as she will have been pregnant and on maternity leave soon after the wedding, and even post mat leave will surely not have been expected to pick up the same level of duties as previously straight away? It certainly looks from the outside that the exit was either planned at the outset, or that at least H had wanted it for some time. Optically, it would have looked far better to have stuck things out for a little longer, but I suppose that initial poor decision shouldn’t come as a surprise given that they’ve lurched from one disaster to the next in the years that have followed. All such a shame and I still hope that they can somehow take stock, reflect and salvage something positive for themselves.

This is what I can't understand.

If it's trying to say that she was "hard done by" it surely shows the opposite!

Surely the sub context is that Catherine should have helped her and didn't. All lines of blame run to Catherine and William.

Yes, the shopping trip, the lip gloss.

As I have said before, having lived and worked overseas in various countries, I have never expected anyone to change their life to accommodate me.

Invitations to social events were always welcome, but ultimately it was up to me to make friends and my own social circle. Because everyone established has their own friends and routines. Just as I welcome newcomers by invitations to get togethers, but there is a limit to the extent I will turn my life upside down.

That makes sense, thank you.

So it should have been a family member, in fact Catherine who should have offered.

Not enough that HMQ invited her to Sandringham for Christmas before they were married, offered someone well qualified to help & indeed helped herself!