JULIE BURCHILL: I spread rumours about Catherine, the Princess of Wales — and I’m so ashamed

I blame Oscar Wilde; reading him at a formative age, his line “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” stuck in my head.

So a part of me really thought I was doing my classmates a favour when, as a precocious pubescent, I spread stories about them to others with the invariable overture “Promise you won’t tell, but…”

For one lovely springtime, I was the muck-spreading equivalent of those plate-spinners you saw in variety shows.

Then I caught laryngitis (probably from all that poison I was peddling) and was off school for a month.

When I went back, I learnt all my gossiping had been found out, and no one in my class would speak to me.

Far from being bothered or repentant, I found it gave me even more time to read unsuitable books.

Besides, I’ve always adored my own company.

Still, I should have learned my lesson, but going straight from school into journalism wasn’t really conducive to that.

I was a shy girl when I first entered the louche world of newspapers; when gossiping, I could pose as the wicked woman of the world I passionately wanted to be.

But I’ve always felt OK behaving this way because, being extremely thick-skinned myself (insensitive, even), I have stayed true to the if-you-give-it-out you’d-better-take-it school of thought.

I’ve always despised those two-faced types who love a bit of back-biting until they’re the subject, when they suddenly turn all #BeKind.

I’m genuinely not fussed what people say about me.

I didn’t even sue when a newspaper accused me of being in love with Osama bin Laden.

Indeed, when I had a little too much time on my hands at the turn of the century, I would occasionally nip on to online message boards and start a rumour about myself.

But after seeing the Princess of Wales talking about her cancer diagnosis last week, I felt an emotion that is generally alien to me: shame.

Like many of us, I heard rumours from a social media acquaintance about Kate and William that cast neither of them in a good light, and then I repeated them, twice.

It wasn’t a lot, and it wasn’t the worst, and I didn’t go berserk with the craziest kind of conspiracy theories.

Yet, while I would have felt no such guilt about spreading similar rumours about the studs and starlets of showbusiness, who have pursued fame so shamelessly, the princess is different.

This wasn’t some reality TV drama being played out for attention; this is someone’s life.

I was left asking myself, if I was prepared to add to the sorrow of a frail woman of just 42 preparing her three young children for an uncertain future, whose sorrow am I not prepared to add to?

It’s an uncomfortable position to find oneself in, even for me.

And if I am happy to spread rumours in this way, can I really claim to be a Christian?

So, after a lifetime of trash-talking, it has made me feel determined to stop saying things that are neither personal opinion nor fact — in short, gossiping.

You may be left wondering if such a vow is really a sacrifice, but for someone who has for so long savoured gossip, it certainly is a sea change — even if I can’t claim my love of tittle-tattle has always served me well.

If I think back to the gossip I’ve passed on over the years, none of it concerning famous people that I’ve heard ‘from a friend of a friend’ has ever turned out to be true.

(Apart from the one about the girl who woke up next to an extraordinarily ugly but very successful 90s pop star after an ill-advised one-night stand. Rather than wake him up — fearing that a repeat performance might be called for — she let herself out of his mansion only to find a sweeping drive in front of her, at the end of which were a pair of high and locked gates. She stood there desolate until after ten minutes a police car passed by, reversed and stopped; a policewoman jumped out, laughing, and punched in the opening code. Apparently it happened so often, the pop star had given local police the numbers himself.)

Even when I kidded myself I was somehow being noble by gossiping, I was often doing more harm than good.

“No, I will not shut her out of my social circle,” I scolded a friend who wanted us to permanently swerve another pal of ours.

“She is an escort and deserves our compassion.”

The first friend had no idea the second was a sex worker until then.

So why do I do it? The politician Ben Wallace once said of a Cabinet member that he had “an emotional need to gossip, particularly when drink is taken”.

Which at least gives him some sort of excuse; my own rationale is far less worthy of pity — I like to amuse.

My friendships tend to be about me entertaining people rather than confiding in them; it’s the same reason I would far rather take friends out to restaurants than ever go to their homes.

I decided somewhere during my poor-but-honest childhood that should I ever get the chance, I’d make life into a party, and somehow — shamefully — idly toying with the stuff of people’s lives has become as careless as ordering another round of drinks.

I can’t pretend I’ll be sitting around crying into my Long Island iced tea over all the people I’ve wronged.

For all I know, they were gossiping about me, too.

But I am trying to turn over a new leaf.

My friend James has tried to initiate gossip twice recently and both times I’ve replied: “I can’t possibly comment.”

He finds this highly amusing, but perhaps I’ll have the last laugh.

Because I’d like to be remembered as something more than an ever-streaming sewer of salacious gossip — even if it has been a lot of fun.