I have never met Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and so cannot honestly advance a personal opinion as to whether he is indeed something of a narcissist. Although I have heard it suggested that he’d eat himself if he were a chocolate biscuit. (Or should that be a champagne truffle?)
His spectacular public demise has pretty much coincided with the publication of two books. Most recently, there has been an appalling and sad posthumous autobiography, Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, to whom Andrew paid £12 million by way of a ‘settlement’ despite insisting he’d never met her. Previously there was a biography, Entitled by Andrew Lownie, which is shocking in a different way and has a title that perfectly encapsulates AMW’s attitude to his former lifestyle. It also contains some golf.
I remember seeing Andrew at the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama, publicity-wise desperately seeking sustenance by trying to hang out with Seve. Lownie’s book chronicles such incidents as a helicopter trip from Buckingham Palace to a golf course in Oxfordshire (I mean, the M40 – what’s that?) and him running up a bill of £4,352 to take a Queen’s Flight aircraft to visit the R&A at St Andrews, where the plane “waited on the runway at RAF Leuchars for 11 hours while he enjoyed lunch and eight holes on the Old Course”. Lownie added: “In one case he spent £4,645 to take an RAF jet to the R&A, instead of a £254 commercial flight, so that he could finish 18 holes and rush back to London. His next official engagement was not for another four days.” Hey, that’s what the taxpayer is there for. Lownie also records Andrew ‘doing a Trump’ – not liking a lie he had found in a bunker at The Belfry and throwing his ball into a better one. “No one wanted to call out the Queen’s second son,” wrote Lownie, “least of all the rules official.” All charming stuff.
It seems that with effect from some point in the new year Andrew will be banished to Sandringham, which probably isn’t the worst place on earth to banished to. Heck, it’s only 12 miles from Brancaster. Having said that, A.N. Wilson, writing in The Times, noted that Andrew would be “desperately hoping he will not be blackballed from the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club”. Four members of the royal family have been captains of the club. Andrew could become the first member to be kicked out of it. Even if he avoids that fate, he may not find it so easy now to rustle up a fourball. Or a singles, come to that.
Finally, this anecdote. One evening aeons ago, Andrew rang the home of the club pro who was then giving him golf lessons – who knows, perhaps at the Royal Household Golf Club at Windsor Castle? The professional’s son answered the call and was asked if it might be possible to speak to the master of the house. His son responded: “Please, who’s calling?” The reply came: “The Duke of York.” The lad put down the receiver – we’re talking landline era here – and shouted: “Dad! It’s the pub on the phone for you.”
From public house to public louse, I guess.
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
