Meghan’s race relations role

by Amit Roy

MARKLE HAS MADE ETHNIC MINORITIES FEEL LIKE THEY BELONG, SAYS AUTHOR

MEGHAN MARKLE’S wedding to Prince Harry next Saturday (19) at Windsor Castle will have a beneficial effect on race relations in Britain, best-selling author Andrew Morton has said.

After the couple announced their en­gagement, Morton was first out with his biography of the 36-year-old American actress. Meghan: A Hollywood Princess was heavily promoted at the London Book Fair earlier this year by his publisher, Mi­chael O’Mara Books.

Morton spoke to Eastern Eye exclu­sively about the effect Markle has so far had on British society in general and the monarchy in particular.

After appearing in a recent edition of The Wright Stuff on Channel 5, Morton said: “The ethnic groupings on the show – both the audience and also some of the panel – were all very positive about the fact she should have a positive effect on race relations just by existing. Their chil­dren are going to be seventh in line to the throne. So it’s going to make ethnic mi­norities feel that they belong.”

After the wedding at St George’s Chapel, it is expected the Queen and Prince Philip will pose for photographs with the bride’s parents, Thomas Markle, a Caucasian of Dutch-Irish origin, and Dorian Ragland, who is African American.

“That’s going to be, for me, one of the shots of the day,” said Morton.

Kensington Palace revealed last week that Markle will arrive at the chapel in a car accompanied by her mother, while her father will walk her down the aisle.

Looking to the role Markle and Harry would play in the future, Morton specu­lated that “a trip round India would be more the kind of thing you might expect now from this power couple”.

The couple have asked that instead of wedding gifts, well-wishers should make donations to a number of charities, in­cluding the Myna Mahila Foundation in Mumbai which deals with women’s health issues. Markle visited the charity during a trip to India last year.

She was dressed informally in a ka­meez [tunic] and jeans in India, but Mor­ton suggested: “She would look great in a sari, wouldn’t she?”

Morton, who read history at Sussex University, was once a newspaper reporter covering the royal beat. But he found global success in 1992 with his book, Di­ana: Her True Story. It emerged later that it was Diana herself who provided Mor­ton the explosive material for his book by sending him taped confessions.

Now 65, Morton lives part of the year in Pasadena, California. Subjects for his bi­ographies, mostly unauthorised, have in­cluded Monica Lewinsky, David and Vic­toria Beckham, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, and Prince William and Catherine Middlelton.

He has also written a biography of Wal­lis Simpson – Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy.

Morton talked of the fundamental changes that have taken place in society since the abdication crisis of 1936 when Edward VIII insisted on marrying Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been married twice before.

As to whether Markle will have an im­pact on the monarchy, Morton said: “She has already made an impact – the first woman on the cover of Time magazine in 1937 was Wallis Simpson. Now 80 years later, we have got Harry and Meghan in­cluded in the top 100 powerful people in the world, also in Time magazine.”

He added: “I was shocked to find that a poll in the Daily Express puts Meghan as the most popular royal – first of all, she is not (yet) a member of the royal family. She has not done a solo engagement. It is remarkable the effect that she has had.”

He emphasised that between 1937, when the king and Mrs Simpson became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor after marriage, and now, “everything has changed. The fact is that divorce is now com­monplace. Edward VIII abdicated to marry a twice divorced American. Meghan is divorced. Andrew is divorced. Anne is di­vorced and remarried. Prince Charles – as we all know – (has remarried). Princess Margaret was divorced.

“It is an extraordinary transformation inside the royal family which reflects the transformation in society.”

It is generally assumed that after their marriage, Harry and Markle will probably be styled something like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

“And she will have the appellation ‘Her Royal Highness’ – which the Duchess of Windsor never got,” added Morton.

He expected to see the Bollywood ac­tress Priyanka Chopra included among guests. “She will be there. She was the one who gave a ringing endorsement for Meghan in Time magazine, calling her ‘a princess for the people’ which I think is a bit overstated. But she could be right. She could be the next people’s princess. She has to earn her spurs yet.”