Prince Andrew, as an adult, had a collection of dozens of fluffy toys which had to be precisely positioned on his bed or he would scream abuse at his household staff, a former royal employee has claimed in a TV documentary due to be screened Tuesday evening in the U.K.
The aide, Paul Page, said in an interview for the documentary, ITV’s Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile, which tracks his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell and postulates they may have been lovers, that a laminated diagram was kept in a drawer in Andrew’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace showing exactly how his beloved soft toy collection should be arranged, along with cushions emblazoned with words such as “Daddy, “Ducks” and “Prince.”
The laminated instructions said: “When the DOY is staying overnight, place one small teddy & cushion in the turn down.
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“When making the bed, place the teddy & cushion next to the teddy on the left-hand side with the necklaces on.”
Page, who worked as a protection officer from 1998 to 2004, told the TV show: “It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed and basically there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ.
“The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”
Page was jailed for a £3million fraud scam in 2009, however he is far from the only witness to the duke’s bizarre love of teddies.
According to the Mirror, writer Elizabeth Day also saw the teddies, and said, “It seemed rather strange that a grown man should be so amused by a stuffed toy.”
After his wedding to Sarah Ferguson, his brother Prince Edward strapped a huge brown teddy bear into their going away carriage.
And in 2010, Andrew himself revealed: “I’ve always collected teddy bears. Everywhere I went in the Navy I used to buy a little teddy bear, so I’ve got a collection from all over the world of one sort or another.”
Away from the delights of soft toys, it was reported today that the queen is considering ways to strip Andrew and Prince Harry of their last remaining constitutional roles as Counselors of State. There are four Counselors of State—the others being William and Charles— and the position means that they theoretically take on the queen’s formal duties if she were incapacitated.
A royal source told the Daily Mail: “It is a genuine problem that the palace is looking to address. Can you imagine the Duke of York having to sign official documents, for example, because the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge were both abroad, and the Queen became ill? It’s not an exaggeration to say it could put the monarchy in jeopardy.”
