Earl Spencer On Baby Lilibet's Birth & His Sister Diana's Powerful Legacy | Lorraine

the child spencer joins me now what an amazing expedition well it was you know this is a story that's obsessed me since i was a boy and i first read about it this incredible drama you have all of these important people on this ship including the one man who could be king and they go down and and drown and and there's sort of moments of real human drama in this because the prince was getting away his bodyguards got him into the one lifeboat and were rowing him to safety but then he heard his sister calling for help and ordered the men to turn back and this is an age which i i didn't know before i researched the book people didn't know how to swim at all so when they saw this rowing boat going by they all tried to clamber on they took the prince down so it's only because he wanted to go and save her that that he went down that is astonishing isn't it and i mean everything would have changed it's that one moment and it just changed absolutely everything well yes we wouldn't have had some of the most famous kings in english history wouldn't have had richard the lionheart wouldn't have had king john and the magna carta i mean everything would have changed we'd had different versions i'm sure yeah but but that line wouldn't have come uh the plantations wouldn't have ruled england it's extraordinary already just on one i'm afraid it's because the crew were drunk that they hit the rock because everyone knew the rock was out there um it's very visible at at uh low tide but it is underwater at high tide but the crew were drunk and they were going too fast and they hit the rock and that was that it's just in the back of the books at certain paperback it says how a drunk teenager shipwrecked the monarchy and and colorful and racy now that's what's good about this because this is not a dry historical thinking you know tomb is at home i should say it's it's a rolican good read well i i my background was uh in television a long time ago and i was a correspondent and i used to i was taught really you have to write to picture you can't just write something dry for tv you have to actually have something to show and that's what i've always tried to do with my writing and um this has been actually so interesting to go back into the middle ages because in in the video you just saw it was mentioned it was the titanic of its time but this i i i propose this to the publishers as it's a cross between game of thrones and titanic um because there's so much going on so much drama and it is pretty brutal this period you didn't want to get on the wrong side of the king because it was all eyeballs out and all hands off and and worse and unmentionable yeah you're absolutely right now how close are you now to discovering you know to making a real breakthrough do you think well that we we did find that piece of wood that they were looking at quite a lot under under the water uh roger the wonderfully enthusiastic american who was interviewed uh who's a great man um he's pretty convinced that's the right age the right uh so that you can measure ship building techniques through the ages and it is the right period and we're going to go back in a couple of weeks for a more scientific approach even from that and really work it out but that you could see little bits of the metal work etc in that piece of wood that marks it as an ancient wreck is it the white ship well it could easily be because we know that rock was so well known that there isn't a record of any great ship going down on that since so because they were all sober but they were doing that exactly exactly now look because i said it was written in that and you know you mentioned writing to pictures yes inevitably you must have been approached for a movie or a series or something yes i was um i have been there's a couple of people in hollywood who seem interested in it i have to say it's probably not the quality of the book but it is the because of the thirst for things like game of thrones i think that it has a natural market so we'll see i mean my wife was previously previously married to a hot shot producer and she said yeah well this is a very early stage you know there has been interest and it has been quite a lot of interest uh and then it's published actually in in the states properly in october and hopefully we'll get some leftovers oh that's that sounds fantastic yeah it would be good and all chop of course is going to be opening up isn't it in in july and people can see for themselves the internet sensation that is tim the peacock tim the peacock is i i accept the most famous resident of the house at the moment and he has this huge following on social media if i put something i mean look at the color on him you can see beautiful he's not the brightest he's not very bright look tim tim is famous for his looks not his brain and at this time of year when his testosterone is quite high and he's doing a lot of parading for the pea hens he has quite often attacked my car because he sees a reflection and he thinks it's another peacock to be seen off so there's a lot of feathers flying right not for much result and are you looking forward to having everybody back you know it's been too quiet without your visitors actually so we're only open for 60 days a year in july and august and what i was taught my father was such a he was a lovely man and uh he said there are so many stately homes where if you go around as a member of the public you're treated as a sort of unwanted paying visitor and he said the key is to make people when they come to our house to make them feel that they are welcome guests because they have you know they could go and do so many other things and they've chosen to come there and uh no you we really look after him he also told me the real secret is the tea has to be good and the lures have to be clean absolutely and people remember that far after they've forgotten the art or whatever they're going to remember how they were treated exactly and you can buy a fridge magnet and a pencil and sweeties that's very very important and of course a lot of people go there because they want to pay tribute to your sister of course they do of course they do and you know we saw that with with harry megan's baby i know there's been a hoo-ha about that but at the end of the day there's a wee baby that's been born and you've got a great niece and that's fantastic you know that's the thing lorraine when when i look at all these things i mean there are the newspapers going berserk again and i i find i've always found it so hard i think it's because i'm not very imaginative but i always see things in terms of family and i remember when i was a boy and diana became princess of wales i just sort of plowed along in the same path you know and you separate the media personality from the real person who's a member of your family and that's all that matters at the end of the day no absolutely and of course i know how protective you are about diana's memory we know there was all that i mean it was a scandal what happened with panorama it was just deeply wounding to anybody that loved her and and also i think people now realise how vulnerable she was she was so vulnerable at that time well do you know one of the most revealing things that happened after well panorama were found guilty of that scandal i got this a lot of letters from the public all very supportive and all very sad actually that this had happened but one was from this very interesting man and he i'd never met him and he wrote to me and he said in the autumn of 1995 i was a father at a sports match in which harry was playing and he said i met your sister and i thought she is just the most special person i've ever met and then he said after that she gave her interview and uh he had a very different opinion of her by the way i think she could you know it's fine to give an interview if she wanted to but it's just the way she was tricked into it exactly um and he then he said in his letter to me last week he said i now realize the circumstances behind that and now i realize she was that very special woman and not the one i was worried about having so i i thought that vindicated everything you know people got the context of what it was all about she was tricked into a particular sort of interview and of course that that really set the tone for a lot of what she said and of course she had the right to speak and i had fully supported that but not having been deceived into it no exactly and the legacy goes on you've got the diana awards later on this year the statue is going to be happening and our boys will be there and it's a great way to remember her that's all i've always been a great supporter of the diana awards i think they're fantastic and in fact just to we've had all the winners come for free round the house when it's open with their family as my guests and i'm honored this year to be chair of the judges for the international awards which happened every two years and i met these people last time they're astonishing they're dealing in really tricky areas you know it could be female genital mutilation or it could be trying to find water sources for a community in bangladesh young people who are inspired by diana to do great things i mean what better legacy can you have fantastic in making life making life better thank you so much for coming in this morning let me know what happens with you because i know you're going back in a couple of weeks and as we said the white ship is out in paperback now and it says uh i love the reviews as gripping as any thriller says bill bryson it doesn't get any better than that does it come on that's fantastic don't forget you can watch full episodes of lorraine on the itv hub and all the best clips compilations and playlists right here on our channel just subscribe now and you'll never miss an upload click here to watch another video similar to this one or click here to head to our channel's homepage to explore all of our exciting videos

Channel: Lorraine

Views: 1,671,018

Keywords: lorraine, lorraine kelly, lorraine itv, lorraine interview, interview on lorraine, chat show, talk show, stv, royal, russell myers, roya editor, the queen, harry and meghan, meghan markle, princess diana, duke and duchess of sussex, duke and duchess of cambridge, pregnancy, meghan markle pregnant, earl spencer, charles spencer, diana, Norman King

Id: PPS1TZIqfPE

Length: 9min 21sec (561 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021