Alex Von Tunzelmann

Quite exposing as well.

I mean, quite extraordinary.

So they were writing these letters to each other.

Most of them we can't look at.

And really, why should we be poking our noses into their family's business, apart from the fact their family were very politically important.

At a time of enormous consequence.

Right, so that's why we're poking the nose.

But I understand how they must feel personally about it.

Of course, it's perfectly reasonable for them not to feel open.

But no, it isn't just down to that.

It's actually the family has...

an agreement and it gets quite complicated with letters.

So, you know, for instance, the recipient owns the physical paper that the letters are written on, but the writer of the letter owns the copyright of the words in a letter.

Right.

So, what happened in this case is that quite a while ago, the Mountbatten and Nerugandi families made an agreement that the letters would not be released without the agreement of both families.

So, that's not going to happen.

I mean we know that quite certainly what I saw in my research is that their relationship became you know quite intimate quite quickly and by that I just want to be really clear that I have absolutely no idea what happened or didn't sexually in that relationship.

The intimacy is the thing.

And you can see it from the letter you quoted.

This is a very, very intimate friendship.