Harry and Meghan say theyve left public life. I do wish they get on with it, says Andrew McKie – News Nation USA

WHEN, what seems like several hundred years ago, I worked as a gossip columnist, I was obliged to feign an interest in the royal family, but my heart was never in it. And this, mind you, was during a period of daily ructions so gripping that theyve now been repackaged as the worlds biggest ratings hit, in the form of the Netflix series The Crown.

Like everyone who isnt a foam-flecked revolutionary, I have a great deal of affection and admiration for the Queen. I also on a practical basis, as much as a sentimental one think that, however illogical and strange the idea of monarchy is, a neutral, detached figurehead is probably a better bet than a president, especially if those turn out to come in flavours such as Trump and Macron.

One of the things I liked best about the royal family, in fact, was when they were of very little interest. On the sole occasion I met the Queen Mother, one of the other guests asked her: Maam, what was it like being an Empress? He obtained the reply: It was very nice. While amusing in its own way, that was hardly Dorothy Parker-style wit, or opening up your heart to Oprah.

Scintillating exchanges along the lines of Have you come far? are preferable to the 1980s and 90s when junior members of the Firm (now in their 60s or 70s, or dead) appeared to be playing out storylines pilfered from Dallas or Dynasty. Well, here we are again, though maybe at the level of Knots Landing or Falcon Crest.

READ MORE:Are red deer a pest or pride of Scotland?

The Duchess of Sussex has run into bother when it emerged, during the Court of Appeal hearing into a judgment she won, that she had forgotten writing, in reference to a letter to her father, Obviously everything I have drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked.

The initial judgment was that the Mail On Sunday had no hope of winning a trial on whether publishing the letter invaded her privacy (and ordered them to pay costs and print a front-page apology). The fact she apparently expected it to be made public makes that to say the least a rather more open question than the high court ruled.

The legal judgment is of less interest than the question of the judgment, or lack of it, that seems to have been exercised by the Duchess and Prince Harry. He, who has never made any secret of how much he dislikes the attention of the press, has at least the excuse that he never had much say in the matter. That is a harder line for his wife to take, given her former career in a primetime TV series and as leading actress in Hallmark Channel romantic comedies.

To be sure, the actual crown gets more attention even than The Crown, and Suits shown in the UK only on Dave, until they axed it isnt in the same league. I can easily believe that the Duchess found the degree to which her life became public property uncomfortable, and also fairly easily believe that certain factions in royal circles (I dont necessarily mean within the family itself) might have been snooty about her.

READ MORE:COP26 failed, but its left Scotland with a potent movement

But when the pair decided to abandon the formal role of being part of the royal household, with the ribbon-cutting, walkabouts and all that stuff, they cant also have expected that people would see a constant parade on the chat shows, a range of merchandising and a contract with Netflix as an earnest of their desire to back away from the limelight. Or imagined that the public will maintain a sympathetic view of continual cries of how hard done by two quite colossally privileged people have been.

All of this is a shame. Mainly, of course, because of the damage to personal and family relationships, and because nobody emerges well from public rows of this kind. Its also sad, though, because many people initially including, though you wouldnt think it from the Sussexes recent utterances, the press had a positive view of the couple, and they might have proved an asset to the monarchy and, given their interests, to a whole host of good causes, too.

The Duchesss mixed-race background (even if not much else) gave a lot of British people who had nothing in common with the royal family not that any of the rest of us do, either someone more easily recognisable. Being an American was a novelty Wallis Simpson didnt count and Miss Markle, as she was then, was undoubtedly a glamorous turn.

The trouble, as she quickly found out, is that royal life, though it may superficially appear to have much in common with glamour and celebrity is in other respects its antithesis. As a general rule, the less we hear from royalties, the more successful they are. The Princess Royal is an object lesson in getting on with it without feeling the need to let us know what she thinks; the Duchess of Cambridge has been a conspicuous or rather, an inconspicuous success because theres no danger that shes going to express a controversial opinion.

Thats why, in the past, there was an assumption that the best candidates for joining the royal family were other royals, or at least nobility, because they knew the drill. This persisted right up until the Prince of Waless first marriage there was commentary at the time that there hadnt arisen the problem, as some still saw it, of his marrying a commoner.

As it turned out, it would have been much better if he had. The main difficulty then was the shortage of available candidates, since most European royals were Catholic, which, in another thoroughly counterproductive rule, made them ineligible. Perhaps they should have looked further afield, to Japanese, Indian, Thai or African royal families, since there was no similar rule against Hindus, Buddhists or Muslims.

Unfortunately, when we eventually got more imagination and diversity, it turned out to come from California, and to have New Age waffle and personal empowerment as the nearest thing to a religion. But plenty of us have even less interest in Californian celebrities than we do in the royals, and since Harry and Meghan have chosen the former condition rather than the latter, perhaps they should expect to be ignored.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.

More:

Harry and Meghan say theyve left public life. I do wish they get on with it, says Andrew McKie - News Nation USA