Last updated 09:01, Saturday, 08 November 2008

She’s taken some flak for storming in where blind-eyed politicians fear to tread but the Duchess of York has never promised to be anything other than her own woman.

Undercover: Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of York and Princess Eugenie

In an hour-long Tonight special (ITV) Sarah and her daughters Eugenie and Beatrice went undercover to expose some appalling conditions in care homes for disabled, abandoned and special needs children in Turkey and Romania.

Care, it turned out, was a term to be used very loosely. Children were seen tied up and locked up – one poor mite was even caged in a box – sedated and neglected.

The Duchess was horrified, infuriated and in her customary businesslike fashion, unequivocal in her demands for urgent improvements in human rights in both countries. She also fiercely doubted Turkey’s suitability for entry into the EU family of nations until it could treat its own children with dignity.

Hence the flak – from Turkey, obviously and from the more politically minded with vested interests in Turkey’s speedy EU accession approval.

Nearly two million Brits holiday there every year, taking advantage of a sanitised, commercialised – and cheap – presentation of sunshine party time, without thinking to glimpse that country’s distressing hidden secrets.

The Duchess’s girls seemed bewildered, overwhelmed and disturbed by the whole experience. Young women proud of their mother’s work on behalf of the welfare of children anywhere and everywhere, they admitted to wanting to emulate her drive to do some good, were anxious to find purpose in their lives – other than parties, lunches and dressing up.

But they seemed awfully uneasy about the PR their mother thrives on and – possibly quite rightly – a little worried about being used by TV for a deep end plunge into a controversy that looks likely to run and run.