Confessions of Newport bodyguard who rescued Diana
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Dianab
FROM rescuing Princess Diana from a broken lift to sharing a joke with the Dalai Lama and playing a round of golf with former US president Bill Clinton, bodyguard Paul Ducker has some incredible stories to tell. The former protection officer, of Newport, has looked after some of the most famous people in the world when they visited Sydney. But it was his private moments with Princess Diana that really stand out. Twice he was assigned to protect her when she visited St Vincents Hospice in 1996, less than a year before she died. Mr Ducker opened up about his life as a bodyguard during an interview with the Manly Daily for a story on the sale of his Newport home. "On her first visit to the hospice the lift we were travelling in broke down,” he said
“I had to use a special key and manipulate the doors by hand to get us out.” “At the end of the visit as she was making her way back to the lift the manager told Princess Diana the hospice lifts moved very slowly so as not to disturb patients and she just pointed to me and said ‘I’ve got my lift guy with me’.” The next visit to the hospice Princess Diana remembered the former police officer and they got chatting in the briefing room. “She asked me if I had any children,” Mr Ducker said. “I told her I had two boys and she replied she had two boys too, ‘but I think you know that,’ and she laughed. “She was very natural and definitely had an aura around her. “This was at the beginning of the AIDS disease and there was a lot of fear around,” Mr Ducker said. “I know I was hesitant about touching things in the hospice but then I saw her touching people, kissing them, stroking their arm and then I relaxed my attitude. She inspired and challenged me,” he said. Mr Ducker has never before shared his moments with the princess and they only surfaced as a result of him talking to the Manly Daily about selling his home. The unassuming former police officer took his job of guarding people’s privacy seriously. Even the photograph of him and Diana wasn’t his idea. It was given to him as a thank you from the hospice much later after the event. “Protecting Diana was a highlight,” he said adding how sad he was when she died only nine months later. In the late 1990s Mr Ducker was also assigned to protect the Dalai Lama. “When he talked to you he held you by the arm. He had an amazing laugh and put everyone at ease,” Mr Ducker said. President Clinton visited Sydney having been elected for a second term. “I met the president a couple of times but I remember he came over to me and started talking when he was at the NSW Golf Club at La Perouse.
“He was playing a round of golf with Greg Norman and we were walking around him and we were talking, just a couple of guys playing a round of golf. He was charismatic and one of those gifted guys that have real presence.”
Since his police protection days Mr Ducker has worked as head of security for the US Survivor TV series for eight years and now works as a private consultant helping people with personal security. He and his wife Alison have lived in Ismona Ave, Newport for 14 years. They are now downsizing on the beaches and selling up to help their twin sons who were five when Mr Ducker told Princess Diana about them. Both are now in their early twenties and working on the northern beaches as carpenters.
● 3 Ismona Ave, Newport is a five-bedroom house being auctioned on Wednesday June 10 through LJ Hooker Mona Vale.
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