Still living in the past

What is the point of this book? Even the title is a joke, surely? In his preface, Hewitt declares: "I am a forward-looking character. I don't want to look back. I am moving on and I want the past to stay there."

Why, then, rehash the entire contents of Princess in Love, the book he collaborated on with me a decade ago, tossing in a rejig of his 1999 offering Love and War - another trawl through his five-year love affair with Princess Diana, including his duties in the Gulf War - to produce this dull amalgam?

Does he believe that the final two chapters, chronicling his high dive into the dubious waters of reality TV, prove his point?

Hewitt tries to convince us that he is not a bad egg. In spite of everything, I still believe him. He may come across as a repetitious, name-dropping Sloane; everyone he has ever encountered, from friends we have never heard of, to junior solicitors and lowly embassy officials, merits a mention and he is a hopeless raconteur. Yet he is benign enough.

Unquestionably a stalwart to Diana, he was there when she needed him. Yet that is such stale stuff, that the only time the book feels fresh is when he writes of the camaraderie among his three fellow soldiers, sharing a tank in the Gulf. Suddenly, you sense buoyant feeling, which is rare because Hewitt is absent, emotionally speaking, most of the time.

Even the preface strikes an inauthentic note. Hewitt claims that, prior to writing, he burned some of his most intimate love letters from Diana, a symbol of letting go. I don't believe that, any more than I buy the idea that he missed the beginning of Diana's infamous Panorama interview.

Consistently selective with the truth, his memories are sketchy, possibly because he often admits to being half cut. There are endless anecdotes precipitated by "a fair stoup of wine".

Sour grapes on my part, you may think, as Hewitt describes his collaboration on Princess in Love as "the biggest mistake I have ever made". What, bigger than bedding the wife of the future King in the first place? Bigger than getting caught?

The implication is that, after publication, contact between us ceased. No wonder he omits to mention that two years later, in the frenzied aftermath of Panorama, he was straight on the blower to me. The press outside clamoured for quotes but Hewitt writes: "I truly had nothing to say." In fact, he had already spoken to me for articles I wrote for this newspaper and others, for which he received half my fee.

Where he really confuses fact and fiction is in his account of a meeting we had in a field, prior to Princess in Love's 1994 publication. Hewitt claims the publishers wanted more detailed material, changing "a documentary account" of his life, to a love story.

Come on, James! Remember, when you approached me about doing a book, you made two stipulations? First, the book had to be a love story and second, it had to be published before Andrew Morton's next offering? (Apparently, Diana was concerned that their affair would be exposed less sympathetically.)

Hewitt is not the only one with regrets. I regret that, as I only had five weeks to write the book, it was padded out with adjectives to reach the 80,000 word count. I would have loved the time to have crafted a less breathless, more subtle romance but I was a journalist, with a scoop, against a deadline.

In 1998, Anna Ferretti, Hewitt's duplicitous girlfriend, stole Diana's love letters and in a farcical romp, was stitched up by the Mirror. These moments of Carry On camp prevent the book from being a po-faced yawn in self-justification.

As there is nothing new about Diana, I wonder who will buy it? Moving on requires discipline and courage. Hewitt's Gulf experience proves that he has both. Now is the time to employ them.