From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 16 February

A stress-free existence is what we all seek, so why is everyone so surprised that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have taken the decision to drop their HRH title and step-back from senior Royal duties in pursuit of a less constrained and tormented life?

IN the acquiescent days of yore the Royal Family was sacrosanct – which was not necessarily a good thing. The Australian Royal Tour, 1954, when the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth, together with Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, was here for two months was unprecedented. The royal couple visited every state – but not the Northern Territory. Reading the engaging Women’s Weekly stories of the day through the prism of 2020, it highlights how things have changed. No obsequious detail in the effusive, purple prose was deemed to banal. The readers devoured every word.

Social mores have altered, radically. Where once there was deference, now it is open slather on the royals, and anyone else whose life is lived in the precarious and fickle glare of the intrusive public spotlight. People are obsessed with celebrity, and, to The Queen’s chagrin, the royals have become A-list celebrities. The covers of the shilling-shocker magazines carry headlines which, too often, are a figment of someone’s fertile imagination, and often with no basis in truth. Social media (although that is a misnomer if ever there were one. For much of the time it is anti-social) has given our vocal minority of mean-spirited, disgruntled, functioning illiterates a megaphone; a platform from which they are free to disseminate their bile about anyone, and, too often, with impunity. (Still, I have several personal scores to settle in Ballarat. I know the names and I am awaiting a chance meeting.)

The tirade of abuse and putrid vitriol to which the former Meghan Markle has been subjected since she married The Duke of Sussex (Prince Harry) is both alarming and bizarre. Cruel, relentless censure is potentially dangerous; the more so when it is pejoratively related to ethnicity. While her reasoning is understandably obvious, that Ms Markle felt compelled to define herself as a ‘woman of colour’ is a telling indictment of our judgmental, vicious society. My late mother, Beria, did not notice, nor did she place any store in, the pigment of someone’s skin. Although it was an indictable breach of official white man’s Native Law, she invited Aboriginal women into her house, rebelliously.

By all accounts, Harry and Meghan, together with baby Archie, are a perfectly agreeable family unit. The couple have a highly developed sense of social justice; they are to be applauded for their commitment to their many good works; and they should be allowed, like every young couple, to enjoy these precious years of their lives. God knows, they pass quickly enough! Perhaps they are the harbinger of how the royal family will evolve over the coming years. Unquestionably, the cossetted lives of the little Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret-Rose are a relic from another time and place. The King of the Netherlands has, since taking over from his mother, the former Queen Beatrix, embraced modernity. He encourages people to address him by his given name, Willem. Courageously, Harry and Meghan have chosen to make their way in the world away from the endless criticism and nit-picking, much of which is led by a spiteful media.

Harry saw, and remembers, the disastrous outcome of the media battering heaped on his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and he is determined the same thing will not happen to Meghan. That her father, Thomas Markle, would sell his tawdry tales to television for ready cash is incomprehensible and deserves public opprobrium, regardless. His self-pitying wittering is deplorable.  It seems he is hell-bent on bringing her down rather than lending parental support. His sense of entitlement is extraordinary and tells us more about him than it does about his daughter. Thankfully, The Duchess’s mother, Doria Ragland, has maintained a dignified silence. It’s a pity her carping father doesn’t follow the example and give his daughter a break.

Prince Harry is to be applauded for his courage and commitment to family. Well done, young man!

Roland can be heard on Monday morning, 10.30 on 3BA and you can contact him via [email protected].