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On August 9, 1992, Duchess of York flew by private jet to the French Riviera with her ‘financial adviser’ John Bryan and her young daughters Princess Beatrice and Eugenie.
Sarah Ferguson, who had recently separated from Prince Andrew, was going to enjoy a week-long summer holiday.
Also with her for the journey to La Mole – a tiny airstrip 25 minutes by car from St Tropez – was nanny Sally Hughes and police protection officers Graham Ellery and John Hodgkinson.
The group had rented Le Mas de Pigerolle, a pink-stuccoed five-bedroom farmhouse in ten acres of land, four miles from the pretty village of Bormes Les Mimosa before Ferguson and the children were then due to join the Royal Family at Balmoral.
What they did not know was that a French photographer, Daniel Angeli, was staking them out, having crawled through a mile of undergrowth.
He was about to create a scandal that would be compared to the Abdication Crisis of almost sixty years earlier.
Texan John Bryan kisses the right foot of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, at a villa in France in August 1992. The publication of the image and several others caused a scandal that would be compared to the Abdication Crisis
Sarah Ferguson seen with her ‘financial advisor’ John Bryan at the wedding of Lord Weidenfeld and Annabelle Whitestone, 1992
The group had rented Le Mas de Pigerolle, a pink-stuccoed five-bedroom farmhouse in ten acres of land, four miles from the pretty village of Bormes Les Mimosa (above)
Sarah Ferguson flew with her party by private jet to a tiny airstrip, La Mole
On Thursday, August 20, the Mirror, who had paid £60,000 for his pictures, published them under the headline: ‘Fergie’s Stolen Kisses: Truth About the Duchess and the Texas Millionaire’.
The 55 pictures over nine pages showed a topless Fergie rubbing sun cream on to the head of her balding financial adviser, kissing him, lying under him and letting him kiss or lick – the actual activity has since been disputed – her toes.
It proved that in spite of his denials up to that very week that he was more than just an adviser. The pictures were syndicated around the world.
It was later discovered that a large trench had been dug within a hundred yards of the villa and the pool.
The pictures confirmed that the shots were not grainy long-distance shots but close up and, from the various changes of swimsuit, taken over three days.
Forestry wardens had alerted the royal party to lurking photographers but it appears no action had been taken.
A video, later peddled by Dutch film maker Joost Kraanen, had also been shot.
Recollections vary of the events at Balmoral after the story broke.
The Duchess wrote in her memoir that she had sat up all night drinking brandy with one of her nannies, Alison Wardley, and then breakfasted upstairs. She claimed Andrew brought up the papers from breakfast.
But the royal journalist James Whittaker claimed, on the basis of interviews with Balmoral staff, that she entered the breakfast room to find everyone reading the story.
Sarah was summoned at 9.30am to explain herself to the Queen, who had been faxed a press briefing that morning by her deputy press secretary John Haslam.
Contrary to accounts that the Duchess immediately left Balmoral, she then laid low in a cottage on the Balmoral Estate for the next few days.
Sarah spent much of the time on the phone to Diana, Princess of Wales and a faith healer, Madame Vasso, before catching a commercial flight home on Sunday whilst the others were at church.
How the story leaked out has been the subject of speculation.
The journalist and writer Tina Brown has suggested it was Diana who tipped off the press, because – apart from police protection officers – she was the only person who knew about the holiday.
And the Mail’s Richard Kay said that Diana messaged him the night before the publication of the photos saying, cryptically: ‘The redhead’s in trouble.’
But because the Duchess and her daughters were being taken abroad, the Queen and members of her staff would have been informed of the holiday.
The night before the photos were published, there was no secret about what had happened.
The Duchess’s mother, Susan Barrantes, later claimed the holiday had been leaked by Buckingham Palace as part of a campaign by the intelligence services to discredit Sarah and allow Andrew custody of the children.
Sarah at her first public appearance after the ‘toe sucking’ scandal
The Duchess left Balmoral after a meeting with the Queen when the rest of the family were at church
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew later that year at Princess Beatrice’s nativity play
In her book, My Story, Sarah wrote: ‘My suspicions further told me that The Firm colluded with the Press by leaking details of my whereabouts’
It was a view shared by the Duchess, who wrote in her memoir, My Story: ‘My suspicions further told me that The Firm colluded with the Press by leaking details of my whereabouts.
‘The press then tipped off the French photo agency and the deal was struck.’
Certainly the holiday was no secret. The French police had tipped off two local photographers and pictures of the party’s arrival had been printed the next day in the paper Nice-Matin.
The two rented Mercedes had been followed to Le Mas de Pignerolle and news of their presence quickly got round after a dinner in St Tropez.
On August 13, the Sun had published pictures of Fergie arriving in a large headscarf and wearing dark glasses.
A few days later, the Mail on Sunday had pictures of her ‘pink palace…holiday hideaway’.
But that does not explain how Angeli had had such advance warning, to the point that Bryan claimed ‘they had actually come to the pool and measured where they would take the photographs from – they’d been there for days, scoping out the location and building a little fort.’
So the mystery of who tipped off the paparazzi remains.
Andrew Lownie is currently writing a joint biography of the Duke and Duchess of York.
He is the author of books including Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
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