It was Christmas 2004, and my great friend Nick, a party-organiser, invited me to a ball at the Clapham Grand.
The party got off with a swing, full of 25-year-old friends mingling in the old theatre. All evening, standing above the dance floor, in the royal box, stood the lonely figure of Captain James Hewitt, 46, surveying the people below. A year before, he’d been on Larry King Live, threatening to circulate the Diana letters.
As the ball ended, Baz, a friend, said, ‘Amelia, someone wants to meet you.’ There was Hewitt, a lofty, auburn/
ginger-haired man with freckles – rather intimidating and good-looking. I was intrigued.
‘Why don’t you both come back to my flat?’ smirked Hewitt. It was midnight.
We giggled. ‘Why not?’ we thought.
James, Nick and I jumped into a black taxi. We drove across Chelsea Bridge, past rows of white stucco buildings, until we reached James’s flat off the Fulham Road.
Slightly bewildered and star-struck, we entered his flat into a giant sitting room, impersonally furnished like a boarding-school common room.
James fixed us strong gin and tonics and put the giant television on. ‘I went to the Simply Red concert,’ he said proudly as we watched Mick Hucknall crooning.
As soon as James went to the loo, Nick nudged me, saying, ‘Come on, Amelia. Let’s find the Diana love letters!’
It became a game of cat and mouse. Every time James went off, we would rifle through another drawer – but the only thing we found was army memorabilia. No letters!
Every time James returned, we would jump onto the sofa, sheepish, red-faced and giggling. We didn’t have bad intentions to sell the letters or anything. It was just a funny game for us. (The letters have recently been valued at $1m in the US.)
By 2am, we decided to ask him openly, ‘James, tell us where the letters are. They must be here.’
James laughed. ‘The letters are with my solicitors!’
We didn’t believe him. Bored stiff of Simply Red, we asked for something more entertaining. When James switched on back-to-back videos of himself being interviewed about the Iraq War, we were shocked. James sat there, mesmerised, watching himself.
Nick and I ended up staying the night in the spare-room twin beds. James Hewitt was the perfect gentleman and let us stay, with no corridor-creeping.
We never did find the letters – but I do have some Diana memorabilia of my own to hold on to.
In September 1981, when I was two and a half, I went to Young England pre-school, where Diana had taught. The Princess visited the school that same month, two months after the royal wedding in July. Her visit was totally unannounced, and she gave us each a piece of her wedding cake in a white presentation box. (Sadly, the wedding-cake-maker, Eddie Spence, died earlier this year, aged 91.)
We lined up outside the school door and each shook Diana’s hand. Squinting in the autumn sunshine, I looked up at Diana in her huge white hat with flowers on it.
She had an aura of softness; it was like a hazy dream and I’ll never forget it. Amelia Milne
