There's a scene in the documentary 'Camilla's Country Life' airing this week on British television network ITV, in which the Duchess of Cornwall, in a blouse, tank top and a Jack Russell terrier on a leash, strolls through orchard meadows and tells that she loves to swim in the sea.

The reporter digs deeper: "Isn't that quite cold?" Camilla smiles mildly: "I don't mind the cold, I've been used to it since I was a child." In a way, that says something, if not the essential, about the woman on the side by Prince Charles and is probably one of the reasons why she is where she is now: she is tough.

Anke Schipp

Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Her Royal Highness Camilla Rosemary Duchess of Cornwall, born Camilla Shand, divorced Camilla Parker Bowles, turns 75 this Sunday and sometime in the not too distant future will probably be the future Queen alongside Prince Charles.

And that everyone in the UK can imagine that is a small miracle, because just three decades ago she was the most hated woman in the country.

On December 9, 1992, the day that Prime Minister John Major announced in the House of Commons that the dream couple Charles and Diana were officially separating after only eleven years of marriage, the disappointment of an entire nation erupted in hatred for the woman whom they blamed for the failed marriage Marriage made: Camilla Parker Bowles, then 45 years old, mother of two children, divorced and secret lover of the heir to the throne.

Camilla was insulted on the street, buns were thrown at the bakery and she was denied invitations.

Diana is said to have given her the nickname "The Rottweiler" because once she got her teeth into someone, she wouldn't let go.

The tabloids gladly adopted the nickname, and with great malice, because it also looked like Camilla: small and robust,

Prepared for marriage

But there were also many similarities.

Although Camilla's father, a British officer, was a middle-class man, her upbringing was shaped by that of her mother, who came from a noble family.

Camilla grew up with two siblings in the countryside of East Sussex and in London, where her parents each owned houses, and attended a private girls' school until she was 16.

She received the finishing touches at a finishing school in Switzerland, designed to teach girls how to run a big house, give company and have intelligent conversations.

Everything about Camilla's career was geared towards marriage in upper class circles.

Introduced in London as a debutante in 1965, she then worked for a year for the interior design firm of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler.