The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

What a pity that Harry and his wife in their recent Oprah Winfrey “tell all” interview should have played the race card. I remember one of the first family photographs taken after Archie’s birth that included his grandparents – the Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, and Megan’s mother— Archie’s grandmother who is as black as the ace of spades. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh genuinely looked the proudest, and happiest of grandparents. So did Megan’s mother. All eyes were on the beautiful boy wrapped in a blanket that hid him from public view. It was that joy wrapped in that blanket that drew them together in the happiest of family photographs.

So, if the colour of little Archie’s skin was a secret, Megan wasn’t talking – even in a photo. It was sometime before we saw in photographs the little beauty that was hidden in that blanket. To wonder what shade Archie would be in a mixed race union does not seem an unusual question to me, who am myself the same colour as Megan’s mother. Even I, as dark as I am, was curious to know the shade that such a union would produce. So I don’t know why Megan should have got so bent out of shape by such a question. According to her it was one of the incidents that apparently pushed her on the road to contemplate suicide.

Obviously the Oprah show was a successful show, an obvious talking point and a leg up for whatever plans that the young couple are now working on to get Megan back into show business. Oprah’s show has certainly launched whatever her future business plans are.

Obviously Megan needed a bit more information before her marriage. Maybe, because she was an actress, she expected to walk in and dazzle everyone by stealing the show. Imagine her telling Oprah that Archie had been denied a royal title by the palace. It shows her complete ignorance of the traditions to which she – an American – would have to adjust. It is true Archie cannot be referred to as HRH now. However, the rule is that when his grandfather, Prince Charles, becomes king of England, Archie will get the title as of right. Meghan Markle was obviously ignorant of the tradition and took it as a slight to her son. But, unfortunately, she took it even further — according to her it was because he was of mixed race.

In my opinion, the Oprah show put on display the ignorance of an actress ill prepared for what she was getting herself into, and obviously believed she would steal the show — which, of course, in a certain sense she has done.

Is this history repeating itself? I remember on an early morning in 1936 when I strained to hear a broadcast from London when Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor) took to the airwaves to announce that he was abdicating the throne of England “for the woman I love.”

His was a sad, an unhappy story. It was rumoured that the Germans had planned to kidnap him, hence the quick decision to get him out of harms way to the safety of the Bahamas as its governor.

And so this is where he was posted – his last and only posting. In Nassau he was often referred to as the “third mate on an American destroyer!” The Duchess had been married three times, before she lured him away from the throne of England. I doubt that he ever found happiness. On his last visit here, with her remaining in Paris, he appeared a lost soul.

I do hope that Harry and Megan try to understand their situation and make sensible decisions, because history always has a way of repeating itself.

A BAHAMIAN VIEW

Nassau,

March 19, 2021