But others were not so sympathetic. By the time the first edition of the paper appeared, the story was already out there. The Daily Mirror’s legendary Royal correspondent James Whittaker had been invited to give his views on the gaffe on the ITV’s News At Ten. In his famously grand accent, Whittaker told viewers this was a disaster for Prince Harry. He said that the image of him donning a Nazi costume would dog the young Royal for the rest of his life.
Sitting at home watching the story break, I can remember wondering whether Prince Harry would ever know how close he came to the story never seeing the light of day. If Pyatt’s tipster had produced a photograph proving that it was William in the gorilla outfit, then that might well have been the end of the matter. Maybe Pyatt would have left the Burger King that day with a strong page lead picture of the future king in his pocket, blissfully unaware of what William’s younger brother had decided to wear to the same party.
In reality Harry had to face the music. The next day the story was being repeated all over the world. It led the news bulletins at home. TV crews from the UK, Australia, America, Germany, France and even Japan were camped outside Clarence House in London reporting on the fall-out. Harry stayed well away from the cameras. He was instructed to keep a low profile while the media team at Clarence House dealt with hundreds of follow-up calls from all over the planet.
Among the most damning criticism came from Israel. Silvan Shalom, the then Israeli foreign minister, said: ‘Anybody who tries to pass it off as bad taste must be made aware that this can encourage others to think that perhaps that period was not as bad as we teach the young generation in the free world.’
The then Conservative leader Michael Howard, himself of Romanian-Jewish descent, ripped into Harry, demanding he should make a public apology. ‘It would be appropriate to hear from him in person,’ Howard said. ‘It might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he is.’
People even began to suggest that Harry’s antics should prevent him from becoming an Army officer. Since his days with the cadet force at school Harry had long dreamed of joining the Army. A senior Royal like him had very limited career options after finishing full-time education. There is no way the third in line to the throne can join a private sector firm. He would risk being accused of gifting his employers an unfair advantage over their competitors because of his Royal roots. Nor would it be likely someone in Harry’s position could work in the public sector because of the attention he would attract. If he worked at a hospital or a school, how could his protection officers keep him safe? So a career in the military was one of the few options open to the young Royal.
By the time the Nazi story broke Harry had already been accepted into the famous Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was only three months away from starting forty-four weeks of intensive training aimed at making him into an Army officer. This was Harry’s dream and he had worked extremely hard getting through the Regular Commissions Board selection course. But now he was facing murmurs that risked ending his future career before it had even started. Former Armed Forces Minister and Labour MP Doug Henderson said his error of judgement demonstrated Harry was unfit to join the British Army. ‘I don’t think that this young man is suitable,’ said Henderson.
Harry was under attack from all sides. A senior Royal source recalled the pressure the prince was under. ‘The Nazi outfit was a foolish mistake, and that is all. But in the wake of it coming to light Harry was being put up as public enemy number one. His advisers remained calm and were convinced the story would fade away. They advised against him making any public statements, or doing anything that would fuel the story. He had issued an apology and they felt that was all he could do. There were suggestions that Harry should travel to Auschwitz but that was quickly rejected because it come across as a cynical stunt. Harry was desperate to do something to put it right, but his hands were tied.’
Surrounded by his father’s advisers, and still facing a barrage of criticism, Harry turned to the one person he knew would be on his side.
For the previous nine months he had been in a relationship with a pretty university student called Chelsy Davy. Born in Zimbabwe and the daughter of a wealthy businessman, Chelsy was a breath of fresh air for the young Royal. The pair had met the previous April while Harry was on a visit to Cape Town in South Africa. They had become very close and the prince even joined Chelsy and her family on a Christmas holiday on the remote island of Bazaruto off the coast of Mozambique.
Harry and Chelsy’s whirlwind romance was unlike anything he had experienced before. Chelsy, who was twenty, was studying law at the University of Cape Town. Not only was she intelligent, she was also athletic and extremely attractive, with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, and shared with him a love of Africa and the outdoors.
But most important of all, it was not Harry’s position that attracted the free-spirited Chelsy. She was not in the least bit interested in all the trappings of the Royal family, fame or the limelight. It is no surprise that it was Chelsy that Harry turned to for support when the story broke.
The source added: ‘Harry was infatuated with Chelsy. He had never met anyone like her before. When the Nazi row erupted he turned to her for comfort. She agreed to fly over to the UK to visit Harry as soon as possible and that made a world of difference to him. He was desperate to see her and take his mind off the storm that surrounded him.’
This was the first, but by no means the last time Harry sought comfort from his first true love. Chelsy’s steady outlook was exactly the kind of cool-headedness Harry craved. Over the coming months and years she provided him with the vital support he needed. In those dark days Harry had been blown away by the negative reaction to his choice of fancy dress outfit.
Reflecting on the story now, it was nothing more than a silly mistake, an act of carelessness which simply hadn’t been thought through. The reaction around the world was grossly over the top. He could never have foreseen that what he thought would just get a laugh at a party of 250 youngsters would become a talking point across the globe.
Since the death of his mother, Harry had grown up in relative anonymity, away from the media glare. Perhaps the most significant and lasting effect of his choice of party outfit was to bring forward the point where Clarence House could no longer justify keeping him away from the media spotlight. And that above all is what Harry would have regretted about the whole sorry episode. Scoring an own goal of that scale is the very last thing that would have been on his mind when he and William went to a small fancy dress shop to get ready for their pal’s party.
In reality it was one of many storms Harry was going to ride out over the coming years. Looking back, the Nazi gaffe did him no long-term harm whatsoever. James Whittaker’s prediction that the prince would be blighted by the story for the rest of his life was wide of the mark. But it was enough to remind Harry of the things that were important in life and the dangerous path he trod as the media microscope once again began to focus on everything he did.
CHAPTER 2
THE GAP YEAR
Everyone remembers where they were the day Princess Diana died. It was a tragic event that dominated the news all over the world. In the UK it was the only story being reported, and most of the papers even put black borders around their front pages as a mark of respect.
In the small hours of 31 August 1997, Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed were being driven by chauffeur Henri Paul away from the Ritz Paris hotel when disaster struck. Their Mercedes smashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma underpass as they tried a high-speed escape from the chasing paparazzi. Within hours the People’s Princess was pronounced dead. The most photographed woman in the world had been killed as her lover’s security team played cat and mouse with photographers desperate for a rare shot of the couple together.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened, this tragic event would change the way British newspapers in particular would cover the Royal family. After Diana’s death, things wer
e never going to be the same again. The backlash against the media was instant, but the fall-out would continue for many years to come.
As it happens, the terrible news came through just three days after I had begun my first job in journalism. I could not have predicted, as a young cub reporter on a local paper, what a long-term impact those events in Paris were to have on my career.
I had always been a fan of the Royal family as individuals, even though as an institution I felt it was perhaps outdated and anti-democratic. As a politics graduate I had written countless essays on whether Britain would be better as a republic. In fact, I always felt the Royals represented little more than a living museum, a throwback to the Empire that people just enjoyed gawping at.
The goldfish bowl they occupied must have been, I thought, a hellish place to live. No palace, privilege or position could be worth the life sentence of being trapped in the spotlight purely because of an accident of birth. I would rather have been born into the Addams Family than the House of Windsor, and that remains my view.
My desire to become a journalist had nothing to do with Royal coverage or the high-profile tabloid soap opera that had been played out since Diana’s marriage to the Prince of Wales began to unravel. I was interested in meeting people, writing and having a job that would get me out of the office.
Now, as a trainee reporter for the Tonbridge Courier in Kent, I was tasked with trying to get some kind of local angle on the story. The chief reporter decided to send me down to the railway station to try and speak to people about the biggest story for decades.
The outpouring of public grief centred on the gates of Kensington Palace in London. Thousands of people were flocking to Diana’s home in the capital to lay flowers and messages in response to the awful news. I was asked to go down to Tonbridge station to see if I could find anyone who had made that pilgrimage and interview them for the following week’s edition. With the exception of writing about morris dancers visiting a Tonbridge pub, this was my first assignment as a reporter. My shoes had been proudly polished and I was wearing a brand new suit with a tie bought for me by my mother as a reward for getting through my interview with the paper.
I was so excited about getting a job as a reporter. I had only just graduated from university and this was my dream career. The local paper would train me and although the pay was dreadful, at least I didn’t have to fork out on a post-graduate journalism course with no guarantee of a job at the end.
So the first trip out of the tiny office above a shop in Tonbridge High Street was a real milestone for me. It was the first time I would meet the public face-to-face, and with a bit of luck get some good quotes and my first byline in that week’s edition.
Finding people that fitted the bill wasn’t difficult. Dozens were setting off or returning from London on the train in their bid to pay their respects. I pulled out my brand-new notepad and approached two middle-aged women who had clearly just returned from Kensington Palace.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you but I’m a reporter from the Tonbridge Courier. I am trying to speak to anyone local who has been up to Kensington Palace to lay flowers.’
The reply I was given is ingrained in my memory.
‘Why don’t you fuck off and leave us alone,’ snarled one of the women.
‘Your lot killed Diana, you’re nothing but scum,’ barked her friend.
As first interviews go, it’s fair to say mine wasn’t the best start. I was so shocked by their response and didn’t dare try and explain how it was my first week on the job. After trying for another hour I finally gave up. Everyone was angry and all I was doing was gifting them a chance to vent their spleen. Heading back to the office, braced for the inevitable telling-off for failing in the task, I was still in shock. I thought: ‘Do people really hate the press this much? Surely members of the public can see the difference between a local reporter trying his best and the big national papers that pursued her with such an obsession?’
From the moment of Diana’s death, journalism in the UK changed. The very same people who flocked to the newsagents to buy papers showing pictures of Diana, the people who fuelled the demand for these pictures, were now turning on the newsmen and women who satisfied their demand. We were the enemy. In their eyes we were indeed ‘scum’.
As a result of this public backlash, in 1999 a new set of rules was introduced to stop the press from hounding the Royals. Harry, who was then only fourteen, and his 16-year-old brother William were to have particular protection. It was agreed that while they remained in full-time education, they were to be ‘off limits’ to the press. The only pictures that were to be published of the boys were those taken by accredited photographers and released with the authorization of the palace.
It was a concession almost all editors agreed to. The flag-waving, pro-Royal public loved to read about their favourite family, but Diana’s death drew a new line in the sand. From that moment on the teenage princes were to be treated with kid gloves by the media and any journalist who stepped outside this agreement faced being named and shamed.
In most respects the post-Diana arrangements worked well. The princes were left alone to continue their education at Eton College, in Berkshire, one of the world’s best and most expensive private schools. For the next six years, every now and then the palace would arrange for William and Harry to be photographed and these pictures would be released to the media for their consumption.
Diana was such a big seller for the British tabloids in particular. At the height of her popularity, a mere picture of her in a new dress would make front-page news. And a front page with Diana would sell like hot cakes. Editors quickly realized she was a gift from the tabloid gods. But following her death, there was a general reluctance to allow history to repeat itself with her sons. Generally, papers steered well clear of publishing pictures and stories of the boys. And in this unprecedented media vacuum William and Harry were allowed to enjoy their teenage years in relative normality.
That should really have been the end of the matter. The only problem was that the princes, and Harry in particular, had taken their mother’s death very hard. He was not academic and his mother’s death in many ways gave Harry the freedom to react like any teenager who was never likely to excel in his studies. He became rebellious. In fact, he revelled in being the class clown. Rather than befriend fellow pupils who sat at the front of the class, handed their homework in on time and studied hard for exams, Harry chose a different path. He chose to sit at the back of the class, rarely finished his homework on time and the less said about his exams the better.
One fellow Etonian recalled: ‘Harry was a rebel. His protection officers were always in the background and everyone knew who he was. But apart from that, you would never know he was a Royal, and a senior one at that. He gravitated towards the other boys who were often in trouble, who didn’t seem to care about getting on with schoolwork.
‘Harry seemed to take the view that Eton was about having fun. He always played the fool and even then had a way of acting up, going a bit further than anyone else. He was very popular and even the teachers doted on him. He had that way of messing about and pushing it to the limit without upsetting the masters enough to get into real trouble. His group of friends were very similar but Harry was definitely the ringleader.’
Harry’s antics at Eton went largely unreported, not least because of the agreement with the press. But in January 2002 the world’s press got their first opportunity to reveal how Harry had adjusted to life away from the cameras since his mother’s death. The News of the World revealed that the prince, then just sixteen years old, had experimented with cannabis.
The paper told how in the summer of 2001, Harry had made the most of being left home alone by his father and elder brother at the Prince of Wales’s Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire. Harry and his under-age chums had apparently been drinking at the Rattlebone Inn, three miles up the road from Highgrove. He was then alleged to have carried on p
artying into the early hours after inviting his pals back to the secluded manor. It was during this infamous night out Harry is alleged to have smoked a cannabis joint in front of his friends.
Prince Charles was reportedly made aware of what went on by a member of Highgrove staff who caught a whiff of the class C drug on the prince. However, the scandal remained a closely guarded secret for nearly six months before the News of the World ran its famous ‘Harry’s Drug Shame’ front page.
When that story broke there was no official denial. A spokesman said at the time of the revelations: ‘This is a serious matter which was resolved within the family and is now in the past and closed.’ It was also revealed that Prince Charles had sat down with Harry to discuss the matter before deciding to take his youngest son on a secret visit to a drug rehabilitation centre in south London.
The reaction to the story was illuminating. Here was the third in line to the British throne admitting that he had at the very least experimented with an illegal drug. And for the first time a newspaper had stepped outside the post-Diana agreement and published a sensational story about the behaviour of one of the princes.
While the ‘men in grey suits’ were furious the story had made it into the public arena, there was no way they could argue the public did not have a right to know what had happened. The statement confirming the story made the news all over the world, and to this day the general public have a vague recollection that Prince Harry has dabbled in drugs.
But very few people condemned the prince for his behaviour. There was still a lot of sympathy for him, and rather than debate whether Harry should be condemned for his behaviour, the public mood was one of anger that he had been exposed. The then Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy even went on television to repeat his view that cannabis as a drug should be declassified and made legal.
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