Prince Harry

by Duncan Larcombe

  This was the first time 19-year-old Chelsy’s name had emerged, and the paper made great play of how the pair were clearly a couple. It claimed they had spent almost the entire trip side by side. Quoting a source at the El Remanso polo lodge, the paper revealed: ‘Harry and Chelsy were like any young couple in love, kissing and holding hands, and he seemed quite besotted.

  ‘They looked madly in love and at one point Harry admitted she was his first true love. They did all the normal things young people do. We held a small barbecue and they sat beside each other and were laughing and joking. She seemed very relaxed in his company.’

  According to the report, Harry even flew Chelsy out on a hunting expedition to a private game lodge in the province of Entre Rios during the visit. They quoted another source who said: ‘When they went on the hunting trip, where they were mostly shooting pigeons, someone got out a small camera. Harry seemed quite agitated about having their picture taken together.

  ‘It is obvious he is besotted with her … When someone asked how long they had been going out together she blushed and said, “Eight months”.

  ‘Harry seemed very protective of her and often had an arm around her shoulders. She was definitely a calming influence on him. We had some drinks at the barbecue but he had only one beer and half a glass of wine.

  ‘Chelsy was sweet and was very proud of Harry when they were hunting, as he is a very good shot. They flew in together on a private plane and left together. There was no doubt they were a couple.’

  In their exclusive story, the Mail on Sunday also quoted Chelsy herself. At the time she was living with her brother Shaun in a house owned by their parents in the swanky Cape Town suburb of Newlands. When the paper knocked on Chelsy’s door, the unsuspecting teenager let slip that she had known Harry since she was at school.

  This was the excuse Fleet Street had been waiting for. Less than a month after his row with the photographers, it had been revealed that Harry had jetted off in secret, with his Met Police bodyguards in tow, to enjoy a romantic break with Chelsy. The palace had remained tight-lipped and the whole romance had been going on in secret for several months.

  Sadly for Harry – and any senior Royals – his love life is considered ‘fair game’. Throughout modern history, newspapers and commentators have viewed the private relationships of Royalty as something the public are entitled to know about. With all the privilege and patronage comes the convention that the tax-paying public have a right – within reason – to know about those people who may have become romantically linked to the most important family in Britain. And because Harry had enjoyed living the high life since leaving school, it was going to be very difficult for his palace advisers to argue that he was still in full-time education, and that the post-Diana agreement should stay in place.

  ‘I want you to go to Cape Town and follow up the story about Harry’s new girlfriend,’ continued my news editor.

  I had never been sent on a job outside Europe before, and the instruction to go to South Africa sounded like one of the best assignments I had ever been given.

  There was a lot riding on the trip. The Sun’s editor was understandably furious that the Mail on Sunday had beaten us to the story about Chelsy. But virtually nothing more was known about this beautiful blonde who had seemingly stolen Harry’s heart. It was obvious most of Fleet Street would be sending staff out to find out more. This would be a high-pressure race to come up with the goods, but I was determined to give it a go.

  The flight to Cape Town was hideous. Twelve hours on a packed British Airways 747 flight. It was November, the start of South Africa’s long hot summer, and that meant seats had been booked up long in advance. The photographer and I had to cram into the last two available, sandwiched in the centre aisle of economy class for the inevitably sleepless overnight flight.

  By the time we landed in Cape Town I was already beginning to regret agreeing to the assignment. I knew that as soon as I turned my phone back on the pressure would start. Sure enough, my phone started to bleep as soon as it connected to the local signal.

  ‘Call the office, urgent’, barked the message.

  I was still waiting in a long queue at passport control when I phoned the newsdesk to tell them I had arrived.

  ‘Well, have you got anything yet?’ came the response. The only thing I had was what felt like a rotten hangover from being crammed in an overnight flight for twelve hours and a suspicion I might have a deep vein thrombosis in my legs, which were numb from being stuck in the same position since 10 p.m. the night before.

  If this was what Royal reporting involved, then it was a far cry from the glamorous, plum job my colleagues had always described. We were desperate for a shower and some sleep, but instead we headed straight from the airport to Chelsy’s address in Newlands.

  Chelsy and her brother lived in an expensive area of Cape Town in a detatched house halfway down a quiet suburban road. Like any nice property in Cape Town, her white-washed home was surrounded by high walls, electric gates and razor wire. Directly opposite was a school playing field where wealthy South African families sent their children. The tree-lined street felt like a haven, worlds away from the run-down shacks of the townships we had driven past on the way from the airport.

  Cape Town is a city of huge contrasts. The poor are extremely poor, forced to beg at traffic lights or pack into rusty white mini-buses in the hope of finding a day’s labour. And the wealthy are extremely wealthy, living the dream life in well presented detached homes where housekeepers and gardeners cost less than £10 a day.

  Chelsy’s home was owned by her father Charles, a wealthy businessman from Zimbabwe who had bought the place as one of his many investments and to provide his two children with somewhere comfortable to live while they studied at the prestigious University of Cape Town.

  It was no surprise to find we had company outside the house. There were at least ten other cars with photographers and reporters waiting for Chelsy to emerge. By now the race to find out more about Harry’s new girlfriend had well and truly started. If the UK papers hadn’t sent their own staff, they were employing Cape Town-based freelance reporters and photographers, all of whom had made a pilgrimage to Chelsy’s plush home.

  A story about a UK celebrity always felt like a big deal. I was well used to heading out to a ski slope, or a European beach resort following a tip that someone from Big Brother or a Premiership football team had been spotted. But when it comes to the UK Royal family, you are entering a different league. A story about Jade Goody would have found its way into the pages of The Sun, Daily Star or Mail on Sunday. But a story about Prince Harry, the third in line to the British throne, would make headlines in the UK, across Europe, America and Australia, in fact in most places in the Western world. And the chance to reveal more about Harry’s first ever serious girlfriend was big news. For freelance photographers just one decent picture of Chelsy could be worth tens of thousands of pounds, as newspapers and magazines around the world waded into the Mail on Sunday’s exclusive.

  Understandably, Chelsy had ‘gone to ground’. She may have been caught out when approached for the first time by a journalist a few days earlier, but by now she was under strict instructions to say nothing to reporters and to try to keep a low profile.

  Knocking on her door would have been a total waste of time. That opportunity had gone. So we set about trying to see who our competition was. What other papers had sent from London, and who were the reporters out there.

  Journalists will always try and establish who they are up against, especially if they have been sent 6,000 miles for a story. With newsdesks screaming for results, there is a strange bond that quickly grows between the reporters on the ground. In reality working for a national newspaper meant getting to know reporters and photographers from rival papers, and spending more time with them than your own colleagues.

  In Cape Town that week there were staff from the Mirror, the Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the News of the World and the Daily Expr
ess, all tasked with finding Chelsy. Without any obvious signs of the 19-year-old, the job now was to track down relatives and friends of Chelsy who might be willing to speak or hand over pictures. The clock was ticking and the newsdesk back in London was desperate for something.

  Eventually we got a breakthrough. We had been told Chelsy had flown to Durban, a two-hour flight east of Cape Town. Her father had another property up the coast from Durban in an exclusive resort called Umhlanga Rocks, popular with wealthy young South Africans and with a reputation as a seaside party town. Better still, we were told that Chelsy was expecting a visitor for the weekend: Prince Harry.

  Any attempt by the palace to play down the stories of Harry’s new girlfriend would go out of the window if they were spotted together in Umhlanga Rocks. Harry was clearly taking every possible moment to see Chelsy – his gap year had turned into a romantic break and he was smitten.

  It was clear too that Chelsy was a very popular student. She loved to party and enjoyed a close-knit circle of good friends. Long before Harry had come onto the scene, the 19-year-old was the sort of student who would hang out with the crowd. Cape Town has an amazing night life, with clubs, bars and restaurants to rival any city in the world. And for well-off students it is a playground for beautiful young people, a place to show off their athletic bodies and tanned skin. We were offered a picture of her wearing a little black dress, holding a glass of champagne in one hand while she danced on a table. It was taken during a typical night out in one of Cape Town’s exclusive clubs, where Chelsy was clearly well known.

  The manager of one of the clubs – the Rhodes House – described how Chelsy and Harry had enjoyed a night there during one of his secret visits to Cape Town in April that year. ‘Chelsy and her friends were regulars at the Rhodes House,’ Jack revealed. ‘In April 2004 Prince Harry came to the club. He was on his gap year and had stopped in Cape Town while on a visit to Southern Africa. He arrived with his security team and a couple of other pals. A little later he was seen leaning out of the window and shouting down to a group of girls outside.

  ‘It was only later we realized it was Chelsy. She came upstairs and joined Harry’s group in the VIP area. At that time no one put two and two together, but it is clear looking back that they already knew each other.

  ‘They were careful not to draw too much attention to themselves but Cape Town is the sort of place where it’s not unusual to spot famous people. Lots of films and adverts are shot here and in the summer months we have super-models and famous sports stars here a lot of the time. It’s a laid-back place and people don’t really take any notice of famous faces in the crowd. I can well see why Prince Harry felt he could come here and let his hair down in a way he would never be able to in London. People just aren’t that bothered.’

  We were booked on the first flight to Durban the following day, which was a Sunday. I decided to get an early night because we had to get up at 5 a.m. and I knew it was going to be very busy. Having got to sleep pretty quickly I was soon awoken by a phone call from London. It was the night news editor.

  ‘Harry and Chelsy have been pictured together in Durban,’ he said. ‘They are on the front of tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday. The pictures are not very good quality but it looks like they are on a balcony together and you can clearly see it’s them.’

  In fairness to the Mail on Sunday, they had made the most of their head start on the Chelsy exclusive and had already sent some local freelance photographers to Durban. But the pressure was now on. We had to try and match those pictures in time for The Sun’s next edition of the paper on Monday or I could forget about doing the Royal job.

  We arrived in Umhlanga Rocks by 11 a.m., determined to get something for ourselves. The resort was very busy with young beautiful blonde girls who all looked like Chelsy. Everywhere we looked it was as though our eyes were playing tricks. Chelsy is very much the typical white South African beauty. With her long blonde hair, athletic body and sun-kissed skin, at Umhlanga Rocks she blended in like a chameleon. This was going to be far more difficult than we thought.

  Chelsy and Harry were staying in a plush apartment block overlooking the Indian Ocean. The modern building boasted its own security and each of the 20 or so apartments had large layered sun decks to the rear that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the back of a large cruise ship. It was surrounded by large walls topped with electric fences and it was almost impossible to see inside.

  Impossible, that is, except from a large tower block of holiday apartments right next door. It was obvious that the freelance photographer had staked out the couple from the roof of the building, waiting for the best moment to get their picture. The photographer and I took one look at this vantage point and immediately agreed we could not stay. The rules were quite clear that taking a picture from private land onto private land fell well outside the then Press Complaints Commission guidelines. Also the roof of the private block was accessed by a door which had almost certainly been forcibly prized open. It seemed to have been damaged in the process, and there was no way in those circumstances a picture from that position could be used.

  So instead we waited in the centre of town in the hope that Harry and Chelsy might slip out of their apartment for some lunch. After driving around the resort we finally spotted a small group of youngsters enjoying a lunch outside a café called Zack’s. They were sitting in a courtyard on picnic benches and under the shade of some large umbrellas.

  Sitting with his back to us in a grey T-shirt was a ginger-haired guy with a pair of sunglasses tucked behind his ears. I had never seen Prince Harry in the flesh before that moment, but there was no mistaking him. To his side Chelsy’s long blonde hair waved in the breeze. She was wearing a figure-hugging turquoise shirt over a black bikini top. The couple were sitting side by side and looked completely relaxed with each other.

  Chelsy’s brother Shaun and his girlfriend were sitting opposite, while a small group of Harry’s police protection officers sat discreetly at a table nearby. Their policy, as ever, was to draw as little attention as possible to their principal. They were even dressed like other holidaymakers in shorts and open-necked shirts, and quietly sipped coffee as the group enjoyed their lunch.

  Even though dozens of people walked past, it was clear no one had a clue who was sitting right there. It was obvious even then that this was paradise for Harry. He had grown up in castles and palaces, been greeted by crowds of people since the day he was born, always stared at, always under the spotlight. But here in Umhlanga Rocks he was anonymous. No one even gave him a second look. And better still, he was with Chelsy.

  Their eight-month romance had brought them to the place where she enjoyed holidays as a youngster. The laid-back, sun-kissed resort must have seemed like a world away from the busy bars of London. Harry seemed equally relaxed with Shaun, Chelsy’s 21-year-old brother and best friend. The siblings shared their parents’ house in Cape Town and were extremely close. If Harry was to have any chance with Chelsy, Shaun’s seal of approval was vital.

  One of the great paradoxes of Royal life is that the family who probably meet and greet more people than any other rarely make friends. For Harry his friends consisted of a handful of school chums, cousins close to him in age and the triple-barrelled children of his father’s wealthy landed friends. Sure there were the usual polo pals and hangers-on, but Harry has never really warmed to this crowd.

  Making new friends is a near impossibility for someone in Harry’s position. He can’t wander down to the pub or nip to the football to meet a group of his friends’ pals. Nor, at that stage, did Harry benefit from making friends at work. He’d never done a day’s real work in his life.

  So it was little surprise that the duo of Chelsy and Shaun seemed like a breath of fresh air to the 20-year-old. At last he had met someone who didn’t seem to care about his royal status. Chelsy was an intelligent, outgoing African. Although she had been educated privately in England, she had never lost her Zimbabwean twang. She didn’t seem
interested in palaces or privilege, she was only interested in Harry the way he was.

  Shaun also seemed down-to-earth and at ease in Harry’s company. He often mocked the prince with put-downs and jokes at his expense. At times Chelsy and Shaun even ganged up on Harry, pulling his leg and making his odd comments the butt of their jokes.

  This was incredible for Harry. A new circle of friends who could be trusted and most important of all, make him feel normal. In their relaxed company he could be himself, play the fool, make jokes at his own expense and entertain them with his silly remarks and wicked sense of humour.

  Even during lunch Harry let this side of his character shine through. At one point the waiter brought over two cocktails Harry had ordered without telling his lunch companions. The large glasses contained what appeared to be a mixture of orange juice and grenadine.

  ‘Come on, Chelsy – let’s have sex on the beach,’ Harry was overheard saying. The famous cocktail – with its risqué name – was enough to make the table fall about laughing. Harry was in heaven and could barely hide his excitement. The couple kissed and held hands as they tucked into the drink.

  After lunch the group headed into a surf shop before splitting up to return to the nearby penthouse apartment. This was when one of the most iconic pictures of Chelsy was taken. Slowly walking back, she looked incredible in her tight top and pink sarong. Her outfit showed off her tanned and athletic body. This girl may have already made headlines but now the world could be left in no doubt as to how she caught the attention of one of the planet’s most eligible bachelors.