12 womansweekly.com
A
s Elaine Adams
watched the
wedding of Prince
Andrew and Sarah
Ferguson from her California
home, she felt there was
something familiar about the
bubbly redhead marrying
into the Royal Family.
‘Could that be our waitress
from Squaw Valley?’ Elaine
asked her husband Cliff.
She couldn’t be sure, but
Elaine, then 51, never
stopped wondering if the
new Duchess of York was the
same teenager with a British
accent who’d chatted as she
served them lunch one
afternoon in the late 1970s.
After the royal couple
divorced in 1996, and Fergie
became the target of negative
stories, Elaine decided it was
time to finally find out.
She penned
a letter, via
Buckingham
Palace,
recalling what
she believed
was their
meeting and
asking if it was true. Weeks
later, she received a reply, on
monogrammed paper, which
not only confirmed her
suspicions, it began a
friendship which has grown
over the past two decades.
The two have exchanged
regular letters and gifts every
year, along with Christmas
cards and photos showing
their families growing up.‘I want
people to know
how kind
Sarah is’
My royal
PEN PAL!
The royal couple’s
wedding day in 1986The Sarah
dollAs she watched the Royal Wedding, Elaine Adams
had a feeling she recognised the bride...
Recently, Elaine, now 93,
was thrilled to get a signed
photo card to mark Princess
Eugenie’s wedding on
12 October last year.
Over 20
years of letters
and parcels
crisscrossing
the Atlantic,
Elaine has
amassed quite
a collection,
which she proudly displays at
her home in Sacramento.
Most come with a
handwritten note, revealing
the bond between the two
and the warmth of their
enduring friendship.
‘That’s why I’ve decided to
share them now,’ says Elaine.
‘I want people to know how
kind Sarah is.’
Now long retired from acareer in writing, advertising,
PR and photography, Elaine
still very clearly recalls her
first encounter with the
flame-haired teenager.
It was an off-season day in
the late 1970s when she and
her husband decided to take
his new car for a drive up
into the mountains to the
Squaw Valley ski resort in
Lake Tahoe.
It was warm and sunny
and, after taking an outside
table, they were greeted by
a waitress with a distinctive
British accent.
‘Since the restaurant was
nearly deserted, she
repeatedly checked on us,
making pleasant conversation
each time she came to our
table,’ remembers Elaine.
The 17-year-old told them
how she and her friend hadplanned an American road
trip that her father had
sanctioned but not paid for.
After they ran out of money
in San Francisco, the
adventurous pals had taken
a Greyhound bus to Squaw
Valley hoping to find work.
There, they’d picked up
casual jobs, cleaning rooms,
waiting tables and – during
ski season – Sarah, an
accomplished skier from a
young age, worked as an
instructor with small children.
When they headed home,
the American couple never
expected to see their friendly
waitress again.
But on 23 July 1986, along