Touched by domestic violence QUEEN CAMILLA'S PERSONAL QUEST

Her grandfather's secret inspired her to reach out to survivors

- Judy Kean

It’s a cause Queen Camilla has campaigned for with all her heart and soul in recent years. But her motivation for speaking out so passionately about violence against women and supporting organisations that help survivors has never been revealed.

However, now it seems there may be a tragic personal reason behind her determination to raise awareness of domestic abuse. It has emerged that her grandfather, writer Philip Morton Shand, beat her grandmother Edith when she was pregnant with Camilla’s father, Bruce Shand. The brief marriage ended after the vicious attack and the divorce papers filed in 1919 detail the horror of what happened.

They say, “Philip Morton Shand violently assaulted [his wife] by dragging her by her arms out of bed into a spare room in her nightdress, bruising her breast and knees and knocking her head, as a result of which she fainted. At this time she was pregnant.”

Bruce, who died in 2006 aged 89, grew up without his father and had an unsettled childhood. His mother’s experience may well have inspired his daughter to speak out about a subject that in the past was considered taboo.