A letter from Planet Fayed

In 1986 a BBC producer approached Mohamed Al Fayed and asked him to contribute to a programme called The Uncrowned Jewels. Mr Al Fayed had recently acquired Harrods as well as a dilapidated villa in Paris that had belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. After a few discussions, it was decided that Martyn Gregory could film at the villa, and interview the Duke’s former valet, Sidney Johnson, and Mr Al Fayed himself. Unfortunately, Mr Gregory did not fulfil his side of the bargain: the hour-long documentary that was promised was chopped to half an hour, and the interviews were dropped. Mr Al Fayed would consequently have been perfectly entitled to withdraw his permission for the footage to be screened. But he did not do so. That is the extent of Mr Al Fayed’s dealings with Mr Gregory.

So Mr Gregory’s vitriolic and baseless attacks on Mr Al Fayed — the latest being an article in last week’s Spectator — are something of a mystery. I don’t know Mr Gregory personally, but since taking on the role of Mr Al Fayed’s director of press and public affairs, I have encountered a few of his type, who hover around the periphery of the Diana story like mosquitoes over a tepid swamp, ready to draw blood and inject a little poison.

He, like Tina Brown, about whom a great deal has been written in the last few weeks, is clearly concerned in the first instance with self-promotion. This is manifestly true, given the advertisement in Mr Gregory’s article about his forthcoming book. As was widely anticipated, there is a plethora of books and television programmes to coincide with the anniversary of Diana and Dodi’s deaths. We have had some already and there will be more. Some of them are illuminating, some not.