For Harry in particular, getting on his bike is literally the best way of feeling normal. No one ever recognizes him and with his protection officers in plain clothes riding along behind, no one even bats an eyelid. Ever since Harry passed his motorbike test he has regularly put his troubles to one side and gone out for long rides.
On one occasion he decided to ride down to Kent for the day to eat fish and chips by the seaside. But as he charged down the M2 motorway towards Canterbury with his protection officers in pursuit, Harry had an experience familiar to many riders. He was pulled over by the local police, who had clocked him breaking the speed limit. In fact Harry’s protection officers had also been ‘tugged’ and were forced to pull over onto the hard shoulder.
His two protection officers pulled out their Met Police badges, hoping this would be enough to convince the local bobbies to let them go about their business. But the zealous uniformed officers were having none of it. They continued in their aim of issuing fixed penalty notices to the three riders they had caught. That was when Harry finally lifted his visor to smile at the officers. As soon as they saw Harry’s face they laughed and miraculously had a sudden change of heart. This time a verbal warning would – in their view – suffice.
So as Harry’s application to the Army Air Corps was being processed, he and William set off for a 1,000-mile adventure from Durban on South Africa’s famous Wild Coast to Port Elizabeth. Their participation in the event in October 2008 had been kept secret, but the boys agreed to invite the media to see them set off for what would be eight days of gruelling riding through South Africa.
The charity was delighted with the extra publicity the princes drew to their annual event. And for their part William and Harry embraced the ride and insisted on being treated like any of the other eighty enthusiasts who took part.
Once again the Royal press corps was dispatched to South Africa to cover the event and take part in the scheduled photocall on the first day of the trek. It was by accident that as I travelled to South Africa I witnessed first-hand the impact Harry can have on ordinary people doing their ordinary jobs.
I was booked into an economy seat on the overnight Virgin flight that would take us to Johannesburg. As one of the last passengers getting onto the sold-out flight I was horrified to realize I had mislaid my boarding pass. Somehow I must have dropped my pass between having it checked at the gate and walking down the passageway onto the flight.
The efficient-looking air steward waiting to check my pass as I stepped onto the plane looked agitated as I checked and double-checked my pockets to no avail. After a few seconds, as a queue of frustrated-looking passengers formed behind me, the steward gruffly told me to stand to one side. I was starting to get worried. I knew that if I wasn’t allowed on this flight I wouldn’t get to South Africa in time for the photocall.
Journalists, being journalists, would have enjoyed relaying the story of how I was ejected from a flight because I’d stupidly managed to lose my boarding pass.
But it was no good, I couldn’t find it anywhere. When the increasingly agitated steward came back over to me as I stood at the bottom of the steps that took the lucky few passengers up to Upper Class, he seemed to be getting in a flap. As I tried to explain that I was sorry and that my boarding pass had vanished, he almost went into a panic. He said: ‘Look, for goodness sake, I’m going to need you to stand to one side because Prince Harry is about to get on board.’
Up until that point I had no idea Harry was on the same flight as me. The Royals always get escorted onto the plane last and are taken off first. But on this occasion I decided to have a little fun with the steward, who was clearly now in a panic at the silly passenger who was holding up a prince.
I said to him: ‘Well, I’m not getting out of the way for Prince Harry, he can wait for me.’
The blood drained out of the steward’s face. I could see that he was thinking, ‘Why does this have to happen to me?’ If he had had time, I’m sure he would have had me thrown off the flight before his VIP passenger arrived.
But by then it was too late. Behind the steward stepping onto the plane was one of Harry’s most trusted protection officers. And, true to form, the next person to step on board was Harry himself. As the steward held his breath, Harry looked over to me and said: ‘Hello, Duncan, guess you’re travelling in Economy.’
Then as Harry began to climb the hallowed steps to the Upper Class cabin, he paused and with that familiar cheeky smile said: ‘I hope you enjoy your flight, we’ve managed to blag an upgrade.’
I looked back at Harry and replied: ‘Well, I wonder how you managed to do that, Harry, must have been the air miles.’
With that the Royal passenger disappeared upstairs, still laughing at my expense. It was then that I remembered the steward, who had been standing there all along.
‘Oh my God, you really do know Harry,’ he said, barely able to hide his excitement at getting that close to the prince. ‘I thought you were just being difficult, I didn’t know what to do.’
We laughed at what had happened and then I joked: ‘Well, is knowing Harry enough for me to get an upgrade as well?’
Sadly it wasn’t, but it did appear to be enough for my new friend to turn a blind eye to the fact I had no boarding pass. He very kindly showed me to my seat in cattle class and promised to bring me some champagne as soon as we had taken off as an apology for no upgrade.
Looking back at that flight, I was surprised at just how star-struck the cabin crew were to have Harry on board. Surely an experienced purser like my new friend must have welcomed hundreds of famous people on board. But he really was over the moon to have seen Harry in the flesh and, when he delivered me the glass of bubbles as promised, spent ages asking about my job covering the prince. He said: ‘I love Prince Harry, he’s the best celebrity I’ve ever met at work.’
The following evening the press were invited to a barbecue with all the riders taking part in the trek. A small group of us were invited into a room to be told about the charities it was supporting and to meet the organizers.
To my surprise, William and Harry were standing there next to a big urn of boiling water. William then poured us all a cup of hot tea and Harry went around with a plate of biscuits. They were in good spirits, and once again it was a surreal experience, even for those of us who had been on many royal tours. I remember thinking how jealous the Virgin steward would be if he knew I was having tea poured for me by the future king while munching on Jammie Dodgers served up by his favourite ‘celebrity’. I told Harry how he had made the man’s day the previous evening, and joked that if things didn’t work out with Chelsy he could always look up the air steward.
All in all it was good to see both the princes relaxing with us as they prepared to set off on their latest adventure. I sensed even then that Harry seemed excited about the next chapter in his military career. Trying to make the grade as a helicopter pilot was going to test him to the limit. But if he could pull it off he would one day surely be able to return to Afghanistan and finish what he had started.
CHAPTER 12
HARRY THE PILOT
‘You’ve done what?’ I asked the freelance photographer. ‘Are you seriously trying to sell me a picture of Prince William’s penis?’ It was perhaps one of the more unusual conversations I’d ever had at work.
It never ceases to amaze me what some people think we would want to publish. But this was far-fetched, even by The Sun’s standards. The photo – which I hasten to add I have never seen – was taken of Prince William as he relieved himself during a brief break in his motorbike trek.
The photographer in question was a South African freelance who had covered the princes’ 1,000-mile trek to Port Elizabeth. She had sneaked into the bushes to try and get a good spot from where to photograph the princes riding past. But then she had found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when the group pulled over for a snack and the future king was caught short. Apparently if William had wandered any further
into the undergrowth he might well have actually peed on the camera. But with her exclusive shot safely in the bag, she was now trying to see if any of the British papers would be interested in running it.
This was an occasion when I didn’t even need to put in a call to the office to tell them what I had been offered. I thanked the photographer for coming to me first but suggested the best thing she could do was delete the image from her camera and forget it had ever been taken.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the first time I had been offered a picture of a member of the Royal family urinating. A couple of years earlier we had been sent a picture of Prince Philip using a urinal during a dinner he had attended as guest of honour. It too never saw the light of day.
But there was one memorable occasion when a photographer took a picture of Prince Harry weeing in the back of a horsebox during a polo event in which he was playing. Even though the picture only showed Harry from behind, the palace were furious when we published it under the headline ‘Harry’s Royal Wee’.
After that I had learned my lesson, and I was at a loss as to how the photographer in William’s case had ever got so close.
The reality was that after the photocall on day one of William and Harry’s motorbike ride through the Wild Coast, several freelance photographers had tracked the route and spent eight days trying to get more pictures. It must have been frustrating for the princes who, after all, had only agreed to invite the press along on the understanding that they would leave them alone for the rest of the trip.
This was often the trade-off for official and semi-official Royal events. But with Harry and William riding for up to ten hours a day on the back of 200hp motorbikes across dangerous terrain, there was no way any of the Royal corps that had flown all that way for the photocall were going to simply head home.
We were put on what was called a ‘watching brief’. This meant staying a healthy distance away from the princes and not getting in the way of their trek, while keeping an eye on what was going on. If either of the boys had crashed or been involved in a serious incident, we would need to make sure we were somewhere relatively nearby.
In the event, the boys completed the journey without a scratch, although Harry did suffer with a bad stomach shortly after passing the halfway mark. But the so-called ‘watching brief’ was one of the perks of doing the Royal job. It effectively meant that we would often find ourselves in exotic locations under instructions from the office to steer clear of the princes but stay somewhere nearby.
The most bizarre of these occasions happened when William and Kate made another visit to the private island of Mustique in the Caribbean. A reader had rung the office to say they had just flown to Barbados on the same flight as the Royal lovebirds. In what was more of a knee-jerk reaction than common sense, the newsdesk called me and instructed me to take the next flight out to Barbados. I was to travel with a photographer and try to find out where Wills and Kate were going on holiday.
By the time I arrived in Barbados we had established that the couple had taken a shuttle flight to their paradise hideaway on Mustique, and, after a few checks, that there was no way we could follow them there. The island is private and it even has its own police force. Any journalist who flew there would be sent back and could even face the prospect of being locked up while waiting for the next flight.
I relayed this to the office, who said under no circumstances should we try and get onto Mustique. They told us to stay put and see if we could get a picture at the end of the holiday when the William and Kate would have to return to Barbados to fly back to London.
I came off the phone and told the photographer we had been put on a watching brief and were to stay put in Barbados. He was more than a little surprised and asked when they would be flying home. A moment later he shook his head in disbelief as the penny dropped. We were to stay in Barbados, the famous holiday isle, with nothing to do until the couple returned home.
He asked again: ‘Well, how long are they on Mustique for?’
I replied: ‘You had better get your suntan lotion out – they are not flying home for seventeen days.’
Needless to say, we obediently found a nice hotel and grabbed two sun loungers next to a pool – then spent nearly three weeks wondering where it had all gone wrong.
The Royal job would often throw up nice surprises like that. When we were waiting for William and Harry to finish their motorbike trek we decided to take advantage of an offer from the South African tourist board. They booked us into an exclusive safari lodge not too far from where the boys were due to complete their journey in two days’ time. Once again it was tough looking at elephants and lions while we waited for the Royals to finish their boy’s own adventure.
Harry returned from South Africa at the end of October 2008 safe in the knowledge that his military career was about to change.
His only real chance of returning to Afghanistan rested on his making the grade as a pilot with the Army Air Corps. Even if he succeeded, Harry was committing to several years’ intensive training before he would be allowed anywhere near a combat role. And if he failed at any stage of this training, the reality was that his military career would be in tatters. He would have to accept the fact that he would never be able to serve in the front line again.
There is little doubt that failing with the Army Air Corps would spell the end of his military career. He would never have been satisfied with doing a desk job or confined to ceremonial duties with the Household Cavalry. Harry was in the Army because he wanted to be a warrior. He wanted to serve his country and lead men without favour or privilege. Returning home from South Africa, his head was full of these thoughts. But what else did he have to lose?
He knew that his life was in many ways already mapped out for him and the longer he could stay in the Army, the longer he could delay the inevitable life as a full-time working royal, shaking hands and supporting good causes.
In view of this, and given that Harry is not someone who does things by halves, it was perhaps surprising that when he submitted his application to be considered for a place on the Army Air Corps flying grading course, it was more than a little half-hearted. It was written by hand on a sheet of A4 paper; to explain why he wanted to become a pilot, he simply said he had always been interested in flying and he was keen to follow in the footsteps of other members of his family; and as for the section asking candidates to list their other interests and hobbies, Harry left it blank. Even his handwriting made the document appear rushed and scribbled.
At this initial stage it was clear that Harry knew full well that his application would be accepted purely on the basis of who he was. The Army Air Corps is a famously proud regiment and there is no doubt that top brass would jump at the chance of adding a prince to their number. At the very least having Harry on board would represent a major coup in the unit’s ongoing rivalry with the RAF. In military circles the Army Air Corps is dubbed Teeny-Weeny Airways – a reference to the relatively small number of pilots compared to the rotary wing section of the far larger Royal Air Force.
Harry clearly knew that it didn’t matter a jot if his application was half-hearted and appeared rushed. No one within the Army Air Corps was going to hold that against him. The hard bit for him was not getting on the course, it was getting through the course. Many years ago Harry’s uncle Prince Edward won a place on the Royal Marines All Arms Commando course, regarded as one of toughest in the military. As the Queen’s third son, Edward was never likely to have his application turned down – but he famously flunked the course.
In November 2008 Harry arrived at the regiment’s headquarters at Middle Wallop, in Hampshire, for what was going to be a career-defining month of intensive flying grading. The primary goal of the course was to test applicants’ natural instincts and abilities in the air. The grading is not a physical test that would require Harry to dig deep and push his way through the pain barrier. This was a test of whether he possessed an aptitude for flying. The basics he could learn, bu
t if he did not demonstrate a natural affinity with the aircraft Harry faced being bumped off the course at any moment.
The drop-out rate in flying grading is very high. Even people who have dreamed of being a pilot since childhood often find themselves unable to demonstrate the natural instincts required.
One former Army Air Corps pilot recalled: ‘As soon as you arrive at Middle Wallop you have a sense of how elitist it is. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are, there is nowhere to hide when you are at the controls with your every move being assessed. It is extremely expensive to train someone to fly helicopters in the military. What the instructors are looking for is people who take to flying straight away. Flying is sometimes compared to being able to rub your belly and pat your head at the same time. Some people can do it naturally, others can’t. Even if Harry’s application was a given, his chances of passing the initial flying grading were anything but.
‘For a month you live, eat and sleep flying. All people talk about in the officers’ mess is flying and you never know if the person you are talking to one night over dinner will still be on the course the following day. It really is that intense. Everyone is focused and it is a totally different atmosphere from other officers’ mess environments. The course is split between spending hour after hour in the classroom learning about the principles of flying and the pre-, post- and in-flight checks you have to learn off by heart, and the hours you spend in the cockpit. There is no easy way to get through the course, you have to just knuckle down and hope your name is going to make it onto the final list.’
While at Middle Wallop Harry began flying in a fixed-wing training aircraft known as a Slingsby T67. The tiny plane is used by the Army Air Corps to test the flying skills of aspiring pilots who will only ever progress to helicopters once they have proved they can handle a fixed-wing aircraft. The Slingsby’s cockpit is covered by a glass bubble to give recruits a panoramic view of what is around them. Many fail because they focus too much on the controls inside the cockpit rather than having a wider perspective of what is above, below and to the sides.
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