The 'other' mistress

Author of several biographies, Christopher Wilson
writes in The Daily Mail on
a documentary account of HRH and Dale Tryon - 'The Other Mistress'.

Part of a BBC4 series titled 'High Society' it

"reveals how, for a period during the 1970s, when both women were married to friends of his, HRH bounced from the bed of Camilla to that of Lady Tryon, then back again".

"Through it all, Kanga never gave any sign of her inner distress, and her outward calm and steely backbone were the talk of those who knew her: always a popular figure, she became more loved as she struggled with her physical ailments. Now, on the occasions that I met her, I was astonished by her lack of bitterness at the hand fate had dealt her."
(Please follow link for the full text)

This links to a description of the documentary commissioning.

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obituary: The Times

“A COLOURFUL ornament to English society for more than two decades,

Dale, "Kanga" Lady Tryon
was a woman of great spirit and determination.
She needed - and showed - those qualities in extra measure in the last years of her life, as a succession of illnesses and misfortunes turned her from a darling of the gossip columns into an object of almost macabre fascination.
The public interest was explained by her role as a longstanding friend and
confidante of the Prince of Wales, who was widely and frequently quoted as having called her
"the only woman who really understands me".

Dale Harper Tryon

Portrait by Andy McCartney

18 June 1997 'My life is in danger'

Source: Electric Telegraph Issue 754 By Sean O'Neill
Lady 'Kanga' Tryon is detained under Mental Health Act

Lady Tryon, a close friend of the Prince of Wales, was detained by police under the Mental Health Act last night.
Police had received a 999 call expressing concern at her behaviour and about allegations that she had been making.
She was detained yesterday afternoon shortly after leaving the Black Horse Inn in Great Durnfford, Wilts, where she had had lunch with her friend Sarah Miles, the actress.
John Clancy, the pub landlord, who has known her for 25 years, said she seemed very upset.
"Kanga came in here to chat in the pub garden, in her wheelchair, she just needed someone to talk to," he said.
He said she had had nothing to drink and left the pub shortly after 2pm.
Police were called to a house in the village around 2.20pm.
In an official statement, Insp Geoff Hicks of Wiltshire police said:
"Upon arrival, the police spoke to the lady and she was making spurious allegations.
The allegations that she was making were that she felt her life was in danger from someone else.
"As a result of these spurious allegations, the police officers formed the impression that the lady could be detained under the Mental Health Act.
She was then detained by the police officers and brought to Salisbury police station, which is "a place of safety under the Act."
At the police station psychiatrists began an examination to assess whether she should be admitted to a hospital.
Lord Tryon, her husband of 24 years, was informed of her detention immediately and drove from the family home at Great Durnford to be with her.
Lady Tryon's detention followed claims made by her in a telephone conversation with a local news agency that her husband had returned from a fishing trip in Russia and told her he wanted a divorce.
She told the agency that she was shocked and distraught and then put the telephone down.
Her claims about a divorce followed weekend newspaper stories in which she spoke of the deterioration of her marriage.
She had expressed disappointment that while the Prince of Wales had sent flowers, Lord Tryon had not, she claimed, been to visit her during three days of tests in the Royal Marsden Hospital last week, when she was told there had been no recurrence of her cancer.

June 19th 1997 Tryon 'plans divorce'

By Sean O'Neill Electric Telegraph Issue 755 Thursday 19 June 1997
Lord Tryon tells of 'odd' behaviour driving him to divorce

"Lord Tryon announced yesterday that he planned to divorce his wife, who has suffered a nervous breakdown and was detained by police under the Mental Health Act, after "months of odd behaviour".
Speaking at his home, the Manor House at Great Durnford, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Lord Tryon said that Lady Tryon had "flipped".

The couple, both close friends of the Prince of Wales, have been married for more than 24 years and have four children aged between 17 and 23.
The Australian-born Lady Tryon, nicknamed 'Kanga' by the Prince, claimed on Tuesday that her husband had returned on Saturday from a fishing trip to Russia and told her he wanted to divorce.
Two hours later she was detained by police after a struggle in the driveway of her home and taken to Salisbury police station for assessment by psychiatrists.
From there she went voluntarily to the spinal injuries unit at Salisbury District Hospital, where she has spent much of the past year after falling from a third-floor window at an addiction clinic.
A hospital spokesman said that Lady Tryon, 49, who has been in a wheelchair since the fall, was in "a satisfactory condition".
It is understood that her treatment there will include talking with psychiatrists about coping with spinal injury.
Lord Tryon, 57, spoke to a local news agency of his intention to seek a divorce. He said he had not been at the Manor House when police were called on Tuesday afternoon. "I was away in London," he said. "I do not know where she is now. The whole thing is a complete tragedy. She has had a breakdown or something like that. The divorce decision has been caused by months of odd behaviour."
He said he had no idea what had caused Lady Tryon's sudden breakdown. "She has flipped before," he said. "I do not understand the workings of the human mind. She has said in the past I am going to murder her."
He added that he thought a divorce would be "very likely for the sake of the children as much as anything". Lady Tryon, who suffered spina bifida as a child and was diagnosed as having cancer in 1993, has been prone to increasingly erratic behaviour. After 10 months in full-time hospital care, she began returning home at weekends. "She tended to overdo it," said a local resident. "She would have thousands of people round for lunch and she would not rest. She was just not well enough to come home and resume a normal life."
Several times she had called local police making (allegedly) false allegations about the household staff and theft of her jewellery.
Villagers at Great Durnford described the events as a tragedy.
"Lord Tryon is a very nice, decent person.
It is unfair that he has been made to appear the cause of her anguish," one woman said.

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This blogger suggests to that 'woman' (if she exists) that in most cases of divorce, one or both, is generally 'the cause of the anguish'.