ROYAL AUTHOR DENIES HIS BOOK IS A WHITEWASH
William Shawcross lost his cool
Friday September 18,2009 By Richard Palmer

BIOGRAPHER William Shawcross yesterday angrily denied trying to “whitewash” the Royal Family’s crisis over the death of Princess Diana in his new book about the life of the Queen Mother.

The Old Etonian author, who is a friend of Prince Charles’s wife Camilla, lost his cool during a radio interview when asked about the biggest crisis to face British royalty since the 1936 abdication.
He insisted that what the Queen Mother said and thought about Princess Diana’s death and other crises during the 1990s were well covered in a handful of pages in his book. An increasingly testy Mr Shawcross, 63, then rounded on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour host Jenni Murray for asking about the Queen Mother’s £4million overdraft, large number of staff, and secret operations for cancer.

“It’s so silly Jenni,” he said. “This is an incredibly important woman who epitomised this country through the whole of the Second World War.
“She held the country together after the abdication. And you go on about her staff. It’s pathetic actually. It doesn’t really matter. I’m really surprised at you.
“You’re the Queen Mother of broadcasting and all you can think about is her staff and her illnesses.”
Asked why he had devoted so little space to the Diana issue, he replied: “I don’t think it’s whitewashed at all. I think that Diana was a tragic story for everybody.
“And I think there’s actually quite a bit about it that wasn’t known before. I don’t think it’s a whitewash. Nor do I think that I’ve failed to cover it but readers will have to judge for themselves.”
The full piece at The Daily Express.