Why it's finally acceptable for me to share Camilla's name

If I had a pound for every joker who has asked if my surname is Parker Bowles or enquired after Prince Charles, I’d be almost as rich as him.

When Camilla’s unpopularity reached its peak in the aftermath of Diana’s “three people in the marriage” interview, my sharing the name of Britain’s most reviled mistress would attract pity and bemusement.

I would find myself having to explain, apologetically, that being 29, I was baptised before the affair became public knowledge.

But since Camilla married Charles in April 2005, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve received that: “What were your parents thinking?” look.

As she approaches her 60th birthday on Tuesday, it seems Camilla has finally become acceptable.

The campaign by Clarence House to “win the public’s hearts and minds” appears to have worked. Aside from the Diana hardcore, who will never accept Camilla, and certainly not as Queen, she is regarded by most as a rather innocuous figure.

Having never given any interviews, and therefore never had the opportunity to speak a word out of turn, we know very little about Camilla the person.

Indeed, even criticisms that Camilla is the laziest of all the royals appear to have subsided in light of the fact that she carried out 222 engagements last year and looks set to top that this year.

Although her primary role is to support her husband, Camilla’s own portfolio is growing in what is perhaps a reflection of the fact that she has gone from being the bane of the Royal Family to one of its best assets. With this in mind, I set on a quest to find out what my namesake actually does for the cause and how she goes down with the public on engagements.

Rather fittingly, our first assignment together is for the cause closest to her heart – osteoporosis. Unlike the Diana days, there are no crowds outside, no Union flags being waved and very little fanfare as Camilla arrives to open The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford.

Stepping out of the front seat of her chauffeur-driven Audi A6, she is more glamorous than she is given credit for, with a striking blonde hairdo and elegant Edina Ronay navy blue suit. The middle-aged women around me are impressed: “She’s slim!” whispers one, seemingly astonished.

She is apologetic as she meets the greeters, “Sorry, I keep coming back for more,” she jokes in her unmistakably throaty tenor tones. Her last visit was before she remarried and understandably a more low key affair. Wearing sensible yet fashionable three-inch LK Bennett heels, she is whisked on a tour of the new building.

First stop, an exercise room where she meets 39-year-old osteoporosis sufferer Nicola Miles, who is flat on her back on a couch with a gym ball under her legs. “I rather wish I was lying with my feet up,” jokes the Duchess, seemingly oblivious to the irony of the comment.

Self-deprecation – her weapon of choice on such occasions – makes Camilla seem down-to-earth and more ‘real’ than the average royal. “What’s going on here?” she asks as she bowls over to another patient on a step-machine. The dignitaries relax a little – unlike her mother-in-law and indeed her husband, Camilla can do casual.

And as she proves on the children’s ward, she can also ‘do a Diana’ when required.

Her willingness to muck in and informal approach are at odds with accusations that Camilla has become a little too grand in recent times.

Bending down to speak to a little girl, she is effortlessly mumsy as she whispers: “I think you’re being very brave. I wouldn’t be brave at all, I’d be crying. When you finish the treatment you will feel better, don’t worry.” But then, why wouldn’t she be? She has two grown up children of her own, Tom, 32, and Laura, 28.

Outside the Duchess is asked to unveil the foundation stone for the second phase of the Botnar Research Centre. With ominous skies above, she does not know where to put the blue velvet cover. “I’ll put this over my head in a minute if it starts to rain!” she jokes.

Being a practical kind of woman, seem­ingly more at home in wellies than Robinson Valentine, I suspect she probably would.

The photographers all get the shot of the day in the hospital cafe when twinkle-eyed pensioner Pam Blaby, who has worked there for 16 years, insists the Duchess takes home one of her scones with jam – a snip at 60 pence. I am expecting a polite refusal from Camilla, who allegedly only eats organic these days.

“I’d drop it all down myself,” she warns before caving in. “I might have to buy something to keep me going on the way back to London but I haven’t got my handbag, how am I going to pay for it?” The Duchess’s female bodyguard quickly obliges by fishing a £5 note out of her purse.

Even Camilla can see the humour in the fact that she, like the Queen, now no longer carries cash.

Summing up the consensus, Pam is impressed: “She certainly was good fun. I thought she was very sweet – a very down-to- earth lady.”

Two days later and we are in Cornwall, the Duchess’s namesake, for a full day of solo engagements.

Things get off to a poor start when Camilla is more than an hour late for another osteoporosis gig – this time opening the new ‘Knowledge Spa’ at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro.

Ironically, the new building is directly opposite the Princess of Wales wing, opened by Diana to a fanfare in September 1992. Veteran local newspaper reporter Colin Gregory tells me today’s scene could not be further removed from 15 years ago.

“It was absolutely manic – I was amazed there wasn’t a riot. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people trying to catch a glimpse of Diana.” Conversely, on this particularly gloomy Thursday in July, there is not a soul waiting outside for Camilla’s grand entrance.

But Professor Tony Woolf, head of research and development, is not perturbed. He insists Camilla, as patron and president of the National Osteoporosis Society, has done more to raise awareness of the disease than anyone.

The Duchess watched her beloved mother Rosalind Shand die from osteoporosis, so her interest is genuine.

“She’s been extremely valuable,” said the Professor. “Twenty years ago you had to explain what osteoporosis was but she has helped change that. She’s very hands on.”

Camilla arrives (different navy blue suit, same shoes), again apologising – her helicopter had to be diverted because of the wet weather.

Helicopter? How does that fit in with Charles’s carbon footprint, I wonder?

Camilla has put her foot in it before, after it emerged that a pair of her shoes had been flown out to Kuwait for the royal tour of the Arab States earlier this year, at a cost of several tons of CO2 emissions to the planet.

Next Camilla, unusually for her, makes a short speech in which she refers to changing the perception of osteoporosis sufferers as “old women with so-called dowagers humps”. It’s a phrase I’ve heard her use before.

Clearly the speech has been recycled, but at least it’s her own words. In the audience is Mary May, chairman of Carrick District Council, who freely admits she has always been a Diana fan, having met the Princess years ago.

“Diana will always be a very special person but we’ve got to go with the times and get on with the Duchess of Cornwall irrespective of what we feel for Diana.”

Camilla is in her element at the next engagement at the Cinnamon Trust in Hayle – a charity for the elderly and their pets. Camilla is visibly delighted with the four-legged welcoming committee, telling staff all about her own three Jack Russells, one of whom is 20 years old.

The final engagement of the day is at a charity called Shelterbox in Helston which provides emergency aid for disaster victims and was discovered by TRHs during their tour of the Pakistan earthquake region last October.

Here, there are flag-wavers at last. They cheer the Duchess as she takes a tour of the warehouse. Asked to add the finishing touches to one of the boxes herself, she is told to “press the green button” as the cargo is loaded on to the conveyor belt. “I’ll press the red button if I get into trouble,” she jokes.

She may well wish she had such a button with her at all times. Let’s face it, Camilla has never had any training. She is essentially an ordinary woman leading an extraordinary life.

But whether we like it or not, she will one day be Queen. And I mean Queen, since I doubt whether, by the time Charles becomes King (probably in his Seventies) and Camilla has become a Queen Mother like figure, anyone will strenuously argue otherwise.

The day is over and the Duchess’s final task is to sign the guest book.

Sneaking a peak on my way out, I spot my name in lights and for once, I feel no need to apologise for the association.