A TALE OF A BABY PRINCESS, HER MUM AND WAGGING FINGERS

The British tabloids are wagging their ink-stained fingers at the duchess of York, saying she's a bad mother for jetting off to Australia Sept. 26 and leaving her 10-week-old baby, Princess Bea, in England with a nanny. The trip was to have been only 10 days but the duchess, Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, decided to linger to visit her sister and see her husband, Prince Andrew, who is on duty with the Royal Navy. Meanwhile, Fleet Street is moaning about poor "abandoned" Bea. "The tiny princess will then have spent more than half her life without her mother than with her," The Sun said. "And Fergie will have missed some of the moments most magical to every mum - Bea's first itchy-kitchy-coo smile, her first laugh, her growing awareness of the world around her." The Evening Standard pointed out that while Fergie was visiting Down Under, Princess Diana was extolling the virtues of family at an orphans' charity conference.