BRITAIN: The Sport of Charlie Watching

• Share

Has the Bonnie Prince picked his future Queen at last?

She was a house guest at Balmoral Castle in September, a pretty girl with an almost pre-Raphaelite air of sweet naturalness, sitting demurely by the River Dee, while Prince Charles fished for salmon. In October, swathed in a sporty green coat and boots, she cheered excitedly from the Ludlow racecourse grandstand as the Prince rode his Irish chaser, Allibar, to a second-place finish in a three-mile steeplechase. By the time the Prince of Wales' 32nd birthday arrived on Nov. 14, Britain was rife with rumors that Charles' engagement to the sunny blond so often at his side, Lady Diana Spencer, 19, was about to be announced.

Charles' birthday came and went, with no engagement announcement from Buckingham Palace. That hardly squelched expectations. Diana, after all, had spent the birthday weekend with the royal family at their country home, Sandringham House. It seemed to be a sure indication that she was a serious contender to become the bride of Britain's future King. Charles himself was besieged by inquiring photographers a few days later when he was walking one of his Labradors. Said the Prince, when asked about a possible betrothal: "You will find out soon enough." With that, Britain's latest national pastime — the hot-eyed, anything-but-courtly sport of Charlie watching — reached a fever pitch.

Fleet Street's old-fashioned rotary presses rolled off reams of front pages about the lithesome lass who seemed to have captured the Prince's heart. One photograph showed Diana posing in the bright autumn sunlight, nice legs plainly silhouetted through her diaphanous skirt.

DI is BLUSHING, tittered a tabloid. An other coyly headlined: LADY DIANA'S SLIP.

By day platoons of photographers staked out the kindergarten in London's Pimlico district, where she teaches. By night they stood guard in front of the building in Earl's Court where she shares a flat with three other girls. One morning last week Diana climbed into her red Mini Metro, only to have a roaring posse of press cars take off after her. She burst into tears. Later, the contrite paparazzi slipped a note through the sun roof of her car. The message: "We didn't mean this to happen. Our full apologies."

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace asked the Sunday Mirror to retract a story claiming that Prince Charles had twice smuggled Lady Diana aboard the royal train for love trysts. "There is not a word of truth in it," insisted a Palace press secretary. The retraction demand originated with Prince Charles, according to the spokesman, but the Queen also "wished this to be done." The highly unusual request indicated a special regard for Lady Diana and a strong desire to protect her reputation.

In pub and parlor, no other topic is of such endless fascination to the British public. One typical observation: "He might decide she's too young for him." A housewife from Lancashire went on the BBC'S popular Today show to warble a special song for the occasion: "Diana divine, my sweetheart sublime." The composition, she explained, was meant to help the romance along and encourage Charles to propose.