Now that Prince Charles has dispensed with the services of his private
secretary Commander Richard Aylard, a former PR adviser to the Prince
reveals to me how he clashed swords with the courtier over the infamous
Jonathan Dimbleby interview.
Former Hill and Knowlton Europe CEO David Wynne Morgan, who now runs his
own corporate consultancy, WMC, advised the Prince for a period of about
a year. But he stopped doing so at around the time that Ayling urged the
Prince to agree to the 1994 interview in which he confessed to adultery.
‘I said that the Prince should not do the programme, and that he should
get back on his pedestal and start being a bit more Royal,’ he says.
Now that Aylard had gone, Wynne-Morgan says he has no plans to offer his
services again, but still believes that the Prince needs professional PR
advice.
‘At one point, they asked me to prepare a shortlist of three people for
the position of press officer,’ says Wynne-Morgan. ‘I put together a
list - all three were ex-editors or managing editors of national papers
- but Aylard didn’t want any of them. They ended up appointing someone
from the Northern Ireland office.
‘That’s the trouble with these courtiers - they are power mad. They
don’t want anyone who might be a threat.’
