The resuscitated always arouse fascination, because they are the extreme proof that it is necessary to resist the blows of life. “Always seek, be attentive, say little, do more and do your job,” proclaimed the woman who starred in Britain’s most spectacular and deserved resurrection. Camila Parker Bowlesthe Duchess of Cornwall, future queen consort, will turn 75 on Sunday and celebrated it throughout the week, with a triple promotion that would have made any communication agency dream.
The preceding sentence, which she herself attributed to her late father-in-law and inspirational role model, Philip of Edinburghdelivered it at the party he organized for her at the National Liberal Club in London, the magazine the old (The old man). This place brings together everything you would expect of an English club architecturally, decoratively and historically, but with a liberal and inclusive essence that distances it from the stale tone of other institutions. gentlemen only. The magazine is one of those delicious eccentricities that only British society can produce: a decades-old publication dedicated to celebrating maturity, even old age, in the face of the frenetic pace and cult of beauty of the modern age, riddled with advertisements for motorhomes. lift chairs for the stairs of the house, or courses to understand the handling of a mobile phone.
“In a sweet way you’ve come to think you’re here because of who you are,” joked writer, BBC presenter and former MP Gyles Brandreth with Camilla from Cornish. “Actually, you’re here because of your age.” Actor Jeremy Irons, conductor Rick Stein, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber or the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gathered on the terrace from where we can see the political turmoil of the London district of Whitehall for celebrate the irony and warmth of a woman who has won back many hearts and seduced many others. The first, broken by the thankless role he had to play in the dramatic split of her husband, Charles of England, with Diana Spencer. The second, because for many there was always the subterranean certainty that it competed with a different, even superior beauty. “Some of you, I know, were already hanging around in 1947 [cuando ella nació]. By the way, it was a magnificent vintage of Bordeaux wine,” the Duchess was grateful for the tribute. One of the three stages of a deployment by means of surgical precision.
Close to the oldCamila Parker-Bowles acted as a guest editor in the magazine Country life. Focused on everything related to country life — sports, houses, decoration, landscape, animals… — no other publication better symbolizes the aspiration to the so-called British elegance that rural life represents. In fact, the magazine – which for years has repeated the image of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon – on its cover, prides itself on showing new young promises from British society every month.
Camila chose as photographer, to get the country girl who always has been, to his daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, who has already shown an interesting talent as a portrait painter with her children. “My husband has always been a country man [hombre de campo] in the depths of her being,” she wrote of Charles of England, her husband and future king. “It’s the place where you feel happiest and most relaxed, an integral part of your heart and soul,” says the Duchess, who also confesses the placidity of the rare afternoons they share the silence of a room, both concentrated in reading a book. Most of the time, with often separate agendas, Camila says the two are “like ships passing the night, side by side.”
The apotheosis of a 75th birthday which consolidated the image of the Duchess of Cornwall was the report-interview of the British edition of the magazine voguein its July issue. “My apologies, this morning you have to photograph an old bat,” he jokes with photographer Jamie Hawkesworth when he receives the magazine’s team at Clarence House, the couple’s London residence and administrative headquarters of the Prince of Wales House. The Bruce Oldfield Couture evening dress she wore in the photos shows a woman who has found the right measure of her own elegance. A natural process she never intended to accelerate, like her current peace – better than peace, a fantastic relationship – with the media that once slaughtered her.
“It wasn’t easy. I was scrutinized for so long that I had to find a way to live with it. Nobody likes to feel watched for so long, and criticized…”, admits Giles Hattersley to the journalist. “But I think in the end I managed to get over it and move on. You have to keep living your life,” he says.
Some Britons will never be able to overcome or forgive – as if that prerogative were theirs – the role that history has assigned to Camila Parker-Bowles. The wish expressed by Elizabeth II last February, at the start of the celebrations of his 70 years of reignthat I wanted his daughter-in-law was called “queen consort” at the time of the succession, helped many come to terms with their conflicting feelings. That the Duchess of Cornwall will receive the treatment that would normally correspond to her in the future is the most obvious sign of a long-awaited reconciliation (resurrection).