TEXT E In the days before Diana
became accustomed to daily hairdressers, high fashion and expertly applied
makeup, she looked her best when she was wearing her least. No frilly blouses
concealed her elegant neck, carefully cut skirts her long legs, or bulky
sweaters her well-rounded figure. She was young and not fully aware of just how
attractive she could be. But if she wanted to impress a young man, any young
man, she always made it a point to go swimming or sailing or, at the very least,
play a game of tennis. When Prince Charles saw her aboard
Britannia at Cowes in the late summer of 1980, he wasn’t however particularly
interested. She belonged to his younger brother Andrew’s set, and had come
aboard, not at Chariest s invitation, but with Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones, his
cousin and sixteen years his junior. Diana was three years older
than Sarah, but still almost a generation away. And besides, Charles had
his mind on other things—most particularly the breakup of his romance with the
beautiful but self-willed Anna Wallace. There was also the fact that if he
noticed Diana in anything more than passing, he thought about her as the sister
of one of his former girlfriends—Lady Sarah Spencer—who had recently married (he
hadn’t attended), and whatever others might have been plotting he most certainly
was not thinking of renewing his romantic links with the Spencer
girls. But if Charles was not instantly enchanted by the fresh,
gambolling nineteen-year-old who spent some days aboard the Royal Yacht, his
staff were. "She was so unassuming and so natural,’ one recalls. And in the
manner of all servants, particularly ones who are in the employ of the bachelor
Prince, they inevitably started speculating amongst themselves if she was the
one for what they called "the job". So, it seems, did Diana. At
the age of sixteen she had jokingly told a friend that she was "out to get’
Charles. But that may have been just romantic fantasizing on the part of a young
girl whose main reading was the soapy romances penned by her step-grandmother,
the redoubtable Barbara Cartland. The Prince’s late valet, Stephen Barry;
insisted however: "She went after the Prince with single-minded determination.
She wanted him—and she got him!" She had, of course, met him
many times before in the years of her childhood spent as a near-neighbour of the
Windsors at Sandringham when Charles used to pop his head round the nursery door
where she was having tea with Andrew and Edward, or during a shooting party on
Sandringham Estate where at the age of sixteen she was reintroduced to him by
her sister Sarah. More recently she had encountered him at polo. But then he had
always been busy or with a girlfriend in tow. This time he was alone.
She made sure Charles was watching when she bravely followed his example
and went windsurfing in the ehoppy and not-too-warm waters of the Solent.
Naturally flirtatious, she made sure he noticed her long slim legs and trim
figure. And he could not fail but start to take an interest—if only a
comparative one—in the beautiful younger sister of a former
girlfriend. Accounts of this first meeting vary. Some claim that
it is where the famous romance began. Others insist that his interest was but a
mild one; that with Anna still in mind, the timing was wrong and he simply
regarded her as a new and pretty addition to his surprisingly limited circle of
friends. But she had certainly impressed him enough for him to
invite her up to Balmoral shortly afterwards. Diana accepted with
alacrity. Which of the following is NOT true
A.Charles had very few friends. B.The meeting aboard the ship was their first. C.Diana went after Charles with determination. D.Charles took an interest in Diana aboard the ship.