Prince Harry

by Penny Junor

  “Here the whole thing was a great big ball of wax: the job, the public life, the private life; it was all indistinguishable—not just for them, but for us too. The phone calls would come at any time of the day or night, wherever you were in the world; your involvement with them was twenty-four hours a day and you couldn’t distinguish because they didn’t distinguish. How could they distinguish between what was public and private, what was work and what was play? It was all part of the same thing. There wasn’t much respite and that clearly took its toll on her. It takes its toll on him, too, but he’s been brought up to it and developed his own defense mechanisms, his own thick skin.”

  THE NURSERY

  Given what an extrovert Harry is today, and how very measured his brother is by comparison, it is hard to believe that for the first two or three years of his life, the roles were reversed and Harry was the quiet one. William was exuberant and cheeky—some would say, completely out of control—like many a firstborn, and Harry was entirely overshadowed, sweet and well behaved. Charles said of him that he was “extraordinarily good, sleeps marvelously and eats well.” He was “the one with the gentle nature.” Charles adored him; he adored them both—and with two boys he was well on the way to a full polo team. What could be better?

  William was a handful; he had been the center of attention and indulged by everyone, and his parents were not consistent in their discipline. According to William’s godfather, King Constantine, Charles always treated both boys like young adults. He didn’t force them to do anything but would explain and reason with them; William, who was bright, exhausting and extremely willful, would have stretched the patience of a saint at times. If he refused to put his gloves on and then started crying because his hands were cold, Charles would tell him to stop whining. But at other times he allowed William to run rings around him. Diana would either burst out laughing at William’s antics or angrily smack him on the bottom; however, the nanny, who was the most consistent and effective with the children, was forbidden to raise her voice to them, far less raise a hand. At his nursery school he was so boisterous they called him “Basher Wills” or “Billy the Basher.” Diana simply called him “Your Royal Naughtiness.” And Harry, who was a slighter build than William, was too small to fight back when his big brother bowled him over or snatched his toys. The Queen’s intervention—after William had disgraced himself at Prince Andrew’s wedding—came not a moment too soon, but that same year William’s behavior underwent a radical change without any need for harsh discipline.

  Nannies played a very significant role in the Wales household—and it was lucky for the emotional well-being of the boys that they did. There was a self-contained nursery on the top floor of both their London and country homes, and that was where William and Harry ate, slept and lived for much of their childhood years. They did not eat meals with their parents and they did not have the run of the house. Patrick Jephson, who was Diana’s Equerry and then Private Secretary for nearly ten years, wrote in his book Shadow of a Princess: “They and their organization were collectively known as ‘the nursery.’ It was almost a court in its own right. There were bedrooms, playrooms, a kitchen and a dining room snug under the eaves of KP [Kensington Palace]. There were full-time and part-time nannies, policemen, a shared driver and a separate routine of school runs, parties, shopping and trips to the cinema. Every Friday morning almost the whole apparatus would transport itself a hundred miles to the west, to spend the weekend at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. There a duplicate set of rooms awaited, together with all the attractions and diversions of life on a small, picture-postcard country estate.”

  The principal nanny that Diana chose to run this operation was Barbara Barnes, a forester’s daughter, who took up her position within weeks of William’s birth, taking over from a specialist in newborn babies. William became very attached to her, as children invariably do to the person who cares for them round the clock. She was in her early forties and came highly recommended. She was just the sort of nanny Diana was after: she didn’t want someone who would take over. She wanted to be involved in the care of her children herself and, although she may not have been able to articulate it in quite this way, she wanted to be the one they loved best of all.

  But small children can’t differentiate. The person with whom they tend to bond the closest is the person they see most, and in William and Harry’s early years, that person was Barbara Barnes, or Baba as they called her. It was not surprising. Baba was the one into whose bed William would climb for a cuddle when he got up in the morning. He might sometimes go down the stairs and climb into his mother’s bed for a second cuddle afterwards, but Baba was the first person he turned to for all his wants and needs.

  Sadly, with all her insecurities coming to the fore, Diana saw the nanny as a threat. She loved her boys with a complete passion that no one ever doubted; she was warm, expressive and tactile with them; she loved them more than anyone else on earth. She “loved them to death,” she would say, but she wanted them to love her better than anyone else too. She wanted 100 percent of them, in the same way that she had wanted 100 percent of Charles, to the exclusion of all others.

  The relationship between the two women deteriorated—as Diana’s relationships often did—until finally, without a thought for the children’s psychological well-being, she peremptorily relieved Barbara Barnes of her post. Had she only been able to take a step back, she would have realized that what she was doing to William and Harry was precisely what had happened to her when she was six years old. She had felt the pain of loss and grief and bewilderment in exactly the same way that William, and to a lesser extent Harry, felt it. Diana’s mother had gone with no explanation that she could understand as a child. Barbara Barnes had gone with no explanation either.

  The safe little world that William had lorded over was no longer so safe. Her loss triggered a fundamental change in him. He became less outgoing, less trusting, less inclined to make himself vulnerable. Harry, two years younger, was less visibly affected; and with William no longer stealing all the limelight, there was room for Harry to come slowly out from under his shell.

  Two other nannies followed, Ruth Wallace and Jessie Webb, but neither stayed for more than two or three years. Jessie Webb (who came out of retirement to help William and Kate with Prince George) vanished from the household when Harry went to boarding school at the age of seven. She had looked after him for two years when he’d been alone at home, after William had already started boarding, at a time when things were particularly difficult there. She was another one who was frozen out by the Princess. Finally, Olga Powell, who had been deputy to all three nannies, stepped seamlessly into the role. She was fifty-two when she arrived, a widow with no children of her own, and, as Diana’s mother remarked, “Was more granny than nanny.” She built up a very close bond with both boys and was their rock of security in the emotional maelstrom that was to come. Hugely loving but consistently firm, she remained with the boys until their mother’s death in 1997. After her retirement, both boys kept in touch with her, and when she died two years ago, William was at her funeral. Had he not been in Afghanistan, Harry would have been there too.

  Charles and Diana had been united in their desire to allow William and Harry to have as normal and informal an upbringing as was possible. And while a fleet of nannies and domestic staff may not be normal to most families, they were normal to most aristocratic households. Charles and Diana had both been brought up with nannies and staff, and neither of them would have considered life without them. They were also essential to have in place if the Prince and Princess were to be able to do their charitable and royal duties. All that was abnormal was the close protection, which both boys have had throughout their lives.

  Their Police Protection Officers (PPOs) are members of the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department of the Metropolitan Police. In the case of William and Harry, they were specially chosen to get along with growing boys. Most of William and Harry’s PPOs have been with
them for years and they have built up a very valuable relationship with them. They’ve been part of the nursery, they’ve eaten their meals with them, had pillow fights with them, watched movies together; they’ve been to their schools, to their friends’ houses, to birthday parties and to restaurants and amusement parks; they’ve been with them on car journeys, planes and trains; they’ve been with them on the royal yacht, Britannia, before she was scrapped; they’ve been to Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor, and on every holiday they’ve ever taken at home and abroad. Wherever the boys have been, so have their PPOs; sometimes at a discreet distance, at other times providing company, and—just occasionally, when the need has arisen—protection. They are with each other week in and week out and are, inevitably, very close, but like members of the Household, they have never allowed themselves to think they are friends of the Princes. They instinctively know when to provide company and when to keep their distance. It is a professional relationship, yet no one was expected to address either boy as “Sir” or “Your Royal Highness” or give them any special treatment. As Patrick Jephson wrote: “I will not forget in a hurry the distinguished, but perhaps overpunctilious cavalry Colonel who bowed low in front of Prince Harry and greeted him with a ringing military ‘Sir!’ The look of bemused delight on the three-year-old Prince’s face almost made him fall off his tricycle.”

  KP VERSUS HIGHGROVE

  In London the family lived at Kensington Palace, or KP, as it is known to all who live and work there, which is not as grand as the name or the familiar façade in the photographs might suggest. It no doubt once was, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when it was the primary London residence of successive sovereigns. It sits at one end of Hyde Park, surrounded on three sides by park and on the fourth by the smart houses in “Millionaires’ Row.” The State Apartments on the northeast side where Mary II lived have been beautifully preserved, but by the time the young Wales family was living there, the rest was a warren of courtyards and gardens and smaller apartments housing a remarkable concentration of royalty. Among their neighbors were the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Members of the Royal Household also lived within the warren, including Robert Fellowes, then Deputy Private Secretary to the Queen, who was married to Diana’s sister, Jane. Their three children are much the same age as William and Harry, but Diana’s relationship with her sister—as with the rest of her family and friends—waxed and waned.

  Apartments 8 and 9 were tucked into the heart of the complex, and rather dark and viewless as a result. They had not been lived in for over forty years, so were entirely refurbished for Charles and Diana before they moved in in 1981. The accommodation comprised three reception rooms, a dining room, three bedrooms including a master suite, and a nursery suite on the top floor, which included rooms for the staff. There was also a roof terrace where Diana liked to sunbathe. On her mother’s recommendation, Diana had chosen Dudley Poplak, a South African to help with the interior décor. The result was an elegant but comfortable mixture of antique and modern furniture, and pretty fabrics and wallpapers. Paintings from the Royal Collection hung on the walls, also prints and original cartoons depicting the Prince of Wales. The carpet in the hall and stairway was lime green and pink, with a Prince of Wales feather design woven through it.

  The Princess’s sitting room was the sunniest room in the house. Its tall windows looked out over a pretty walled garden where the children played and where she sometimes relaxed on summer evenings. By one of them was the writing desk, from which she wrote her many, many notes and thank-you letters in her big, rounded hand. According to Patrick Jephson, “It was cheerful, girlish and very cluttered. It smelt good too. There were always flowers—lilies were a favorite—as well as potpourri and scented candles.”

  The Prince, also famous for his long, handwritten letters and “black spider memos,” crafted his in his study, a small, dark, masculine room on the first floor, which was cluttered with books, papers, paintings and sketch pads, some of it in piles on the floor.

  It was a house for the family first and foremost (a family that needed butlers, valets, chefs, dressers and housekeepers, nannies and chauffeurs), but it was also an office. So all the people needed to keep the royal show on the road came and went, such as Private Secretaries and their assistants, Press Secretaries, Ladies-in-Waiting and Equerries, not to mention the individual PPOs for every member of the family, for whom a police room was provided in the basement. It was a small house for so many people and the walls were badly soundproofed. There was little privacy, and it was no secret within those four walls that Charles and Diana’s marriage was in trouble.

  KP was also a place where business was enacted, although visitors to the house in an official capacity might find themselves getting embroiled in family life as well. When Roger Singleton, who was then Director of Barnardo’s, one of Diana’s charities, arrived for lunch one day, William and Harry came bounding down the stairs to greet him. He was carrying a large green plaster frog, a gift from a group of disabled children at a school in Taunton that Diana had visited the previous week. As he was ushered through the front door, the boys instantly began clamoring for the frog. It was too heavy for either of them to carry alone, so William went racing off up the stairs, excitedly yelling to his mother that a frog was coming, while Harry, who refused to be parted from the creature, staggered up the stairs with one small hand resolutely on the frog’s bottom and the other tightly clutching Singleton’s free hand.

  Highgrove, which sits in 410 acres not far from the pretty Cotswold town of Tetbury, was also dual purpose—a further indication of how blurred was the distinction in their lives between private and public, work and play. The Duchy of Cornwall had bought the house for the Prince of Wales in August 1980; when he becomes King, the house—along with the Duchy and all that it owns—will go to William, who will automatically become Prince of Wales. With nine bedrooms, six bathrooms, four reception rooms, a nursery and staff accommodation, stables, barns, cottages and outbuildings, it is neither as large nor palatial a country house as one might expect the heir to the throne to be living in, but Charles fell in love with it. It became his sanctuary: the place he could relax and be himself, where he could wind down, take himself off for walks, clear his head, be alone, think. It has remained one of the greatest pleasures in his life, especially the land that surrounds it. To Harry it is simply home and he knows every nook and cranny. He has played in every corner of the garden, ridden over every field, shot in every hedgerow.

  In his book about the estate, written many years after he bought the property, the Prince said that one of the most crucial and persuasive factors in buying it was the presence of Paddy Whiteland, whom he inherited from the previous owners. Paddy was groom and general factotum; also peddler of all the local gossip. Paddy, he wrote, was “one of the most inimitable Irishmen I have ever come across… A former prisoner of war of the Japanese, he can only be described as one of ‘Nature’s Gentlemen.’ Meeting him for the first time, you invariably came away (a considerable time later!) feeling infinitely better. Once met he is never forgotten. His rugged features and twinkling eyes are one of the most welcoming features of Highgrove and his Irish stories are famous.”

  Paddy became a permanent fixture in all of their lives, someone the boys sought out when they arrived from London and whose side they rarely left. He was a grandfatherly figure, who had a way with horses, and he captivated William and Harry with his tales of country lore. They loved him. He died of cancer at the age of eighty-five, in 1997, the year Diana died, and he was much mourned; but he had worked until he could work no longer. The Prince looked after him and paid for his care to the end.

  Strangely for such a substantial house, there was no garden at Highgrove when the Duchy bought the property, and although he had no experience of gardening or farming and had only ever planted official trees in holes already dug, Ch
arles knew, “I wanted to take care of the place in a very personal way and to leave it, one day, in a far better condition than I found it.”

  At Highgrove, Charles has five full-time and four part-time gardeners, but he knows every square meter of the ground intimately and he planted most of the trees and plants himself. He has a cottage garden, a rose garden, a bog garden, a stumpery (a strange collection of tree stumps arranged to extraordinary effect), a sculpture garden, a woodland garden, a thyme walk, a rose walk, an avenue of pleached hornbeams; he has giant Ali Baba pots filled with scented geraniums, and ponds and fountains, an Italian garden and an Islamic garden. And the walled kitchen garden, which is a mixture of flowers, fruits, vegetables and clipped box hedges, is as beautiful as it is functional. The sewage garden is perhaps marginally less beautiful, but certainly functional.

  To two small, noisy, energetic and inquisitive little boys, Highgrove and its tapestry of gardens was a giant playground; after the confines of Kensington, they couldn’t wait to get to the freedom it offered on a Friday. They were not automatically allowed the run of the house, but there was plenty of space in the nursery on the second floor, and they went in and out of the kitchen freely, where they had a tropical fish tank, and where they used to chop up carrots and apples for their pets. They also had the run of the garden and the outbuildings. There was more than enough to do outside, games to play, bikes to ride, people to see and places to go. There were haylofts and barns, where they found eggs that the hens had laid, which they would deliver to the kitchen; there were ducks and moorhens on the pond, tawny owls in the barn, sheep and black Aberdeen Angus cows in the fields. There was a heated outdoor swimming pool, which was enclosed in an inflatable plastic bubble in the winter, a climbing frame and a swing on the lawn; and, in the woodland garden, Charles had commissioned the Bath architect, Willie Bertram, to build them an elaborate tree house that sits twenty feet above the ground in a holly tree. It is still there. It has a thatched roof, a green holly leaf for a front door and red windows, and inside are handmade chairs and cupboards. It was wittily known as Holly-rood-house, reflecting the pronunciation of the Queen’s official residence in Edinburgh. Both boys and their friends spent many happy hours in it. Charles also gave each boy a little patch of ground in the walled garden where they could grow whatever they chose.