The electric toaster was invented in the UK in 1893 and life was never the same again. That first slice of mechanically browned sandwich loaf revolutionised the breakfast table, a watershed moment in domesticity. But will Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor be able to operate it?
Or the kettle? Or the micro-wavé?
This week moving vans were spotted arriving at the decidedly brown, plain Marsh Farm on King Charles’ Sandringham Estate, Andrew’s final home. When the defrocked prince officially takes up residence, any day now, it will be to the start of a brave new world for him – for the first time in his life, he will not be pampered by a fleet of live-in staff tending to his every need, want, peccadillo, pudding demand and teddy-arranging strop.
WHATEVER WILL HE DO.
With the sword of Damocles of being potentially charged by police and having to learn how to make his own lapsang souchong hanging over him, the least sympathetic royal since Richard III did away with his nephews is facing a world of pain.
Thursday this week marked one month since the police turned up at his front door and wondered if he might fancy a quick, 11-hour word down the station, arresting him on suspicion of misconduct in public office. (He has previously denied all wrongdoing.)
The same day Andrew was arrested, he was released that night doing a superb impression of a shifty possum and has not been seen in public since, holed up in his temporary digs, Wood Farm.
But that property, where his father Prince Phillip chose to spend his last years, with Queen Elizabeth turning up for weekends, was never to be his final destination, just a pit stop on the cho-choo to true humiliation – life in the dumpiest royal property that is not an actual sty, Marsh Farm.
He already hates it.
When Andrew visited it for the first time in January this year reports suggest he had something of a tantrum, faced with having to live in the smallest property of his life and one with no space for live-in staff. If anyone has any spare Kettles for Dummies, please send forthwith.
The sight of trucks this week, and the finishing of a large, shielding fence around Marsh Farm, suggest that Andrew will be taking up residence, if not already has.
While today the world might be busily watching the war in the Middle East and fuel prices edging out Bitcoin, at least nine UK police forces haven’t forgotten about the plonker ex-prince and his decade plus of friendship with the world’s most notorious sex trafficker. [Leah: Have reworded this par to keep it straighter.]
After Andrew was arrested they spent at least three days searching his former longtime home Royal Lodge.
New material continues to be unearthed from the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files, such as last week when images were discovered showing what appeared to be a young woman sitting on Andrew lap in Epstein’s New York dining room.
Which is to say – No matter how fervently the former Duke of York might be praying on bended knee, this is not going to blow over.
The next stage here will be if charges are formally laid by the Crown Prosecution Service.
In the meantime, while the law does its thing, so is Buckingham Palace, with a major sign that Crown Inc might be moving forward with officially removing him from the line of succession. Earlier this month Richard Benyon, The Lord Chamberlain of The Royal Household, made the two hour and a half hour drive from the Palace to Norfolk to meet with Andrew, a meeting about as unusual as Queen Camilla deciding to look in on Dua Lipa for a quick snifter. Reading between the tea leaves, the Lord Chamberlain’s day out suggests things could be afoot when it comes to formally scrubbing him from any right to ever get within cooee of the throne.
Another change in Planet Andrew – the situation in the Middle East could well bugger up any plans he might have of making a bolt for life somewhere hot and dry.
In 2020 Spain’s King Juan Carlos quickly took a one way flight to Abu Dhabi after police started investigating whether he received around $140 million kickbacks from a rail deal. In 2022 prosecutors dropped the case after deciding there was insufficient evidence.
For months, Andrew Lownie has been reporting that the former prince might follow in Juan Carlos’ footsteps however with bombs raining down all over the region, surely that nixes that option.
For now though, Andrew’s Marsh Farm life is a real stinker. Literally. Earlier this month a large dump of manure was spread on fields next to the property. I can’t think of a more deliciously fitting welcome for him, can you?
Life in his new village of Wolferton, population 200, could not be further away from his former private jetting, Thai-massage getting one. All the things that Andrew loves best have been taken away from him.
Horses? Neigh. In his decades living in Windsor, he loved to ride, hacking about the estate on beasts that cost more than several National Health Service nurses’ salaries. Andrew has literally been removed from his high horses and there are none available for him to ride at King Charles’ nearby Sandringham.
His cars? Marsh Farm does not have space for his fleet of Range Rovers that have “DOY” numberplates.
His 72 teddy bears? They are reported to have all gone into storage save one plus monkey.
Andrew’s formally devoted ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the used-to-be Duchess of York? Mysteriously having disappeared off abroad to reportedly filch room and board from her few remaining supporters.
The “straightforward shooting weekends” the King has long allowed him to host for around 20 chums? If Charles has a scintilla of sense left, they have been cancelled faster than Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie’s invitations to Royal Ascot.
And his very expensive guns, possibly worth more than $100,000? Surrendered last year after the police popped around. (Ditto his gun license.)
The irony of ironies is that the man formally known as Airmiles Andy is now grounded in an isolated village which locals have compared to Siberia and which has no pubs or shops.
And in all of this somehow Andrew is going to have to fend for himself and make do on his miserable lonesome like he never has before, with no staff, friends, cars, soft toys or ex-wife. (What he does now reportedly has back in his life – his lawyer Gary Bloxome, aka Good News Gary.)
At a moment when it feels like there are few things going right in the world, at least we have this – the image of Andrew in his socked feet, eating cold baked beans out of the tin because he can’t fathom how to operate this complicated gizmo called a ‘stove’. Living in the back of beyond and smelling cow shit all day, he is certainly learning something about reaping and sowing.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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