Harry’s half-term holidays in October 1997 coincided with Prince Charles’s scheduled trip to South Africa. This was only six weeks after Diana’s death, so he decided to take Harry along with a school friend, Charlie Henderson, and Tiggy. This was an inspired choice. Not only was Harry distracted, but he was being introduced to an entirely new world: one which would hook and inspire him in equal measure. He met President Nelson Mandela and various tribal chiefs and elders, went on his first Safari, saw the Spice Girls, and was given a vivid description of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, in which the Prince Imperial, heir to the Emperor Napoleon III, died.
In 1999, Tiggy married Charles Pettifer. She stepped down from her role of Gouverneuse but not from the continuing friendship with William and Harry, both of whom went to her wedding. She, of course, attended theirs, and has remained a close friend of the family. She also attended the Sovereign’s Parade at Sandhurst in April 2006 for Harry’s passing out as an officer in the Blues and Royals, the prestigious Household Cavalry regiment of which the Queen is Colonel-in-Chief and Princess Anne is Colonel.
By this time, Harry was well on the way to finding himself. His teenage had been something of a wasteland. The loss of his mother had caused him to shut down emotionally, although it is arguable he would ever have grown up without some emotional baggage, considering his parents’ troubled marriage and his mother’s ever-shifting perspectives as well as the way she spoilt him. He had also inherited her unacademic but highly emotional tendencies. This legacy caused him as much conflict as Diana’s own unresolved issues arising out of her parents’ divorce had caused her. Like his mother, Harry grew into a sometimes volatile, unpredictable, antagonistic, aggressive, but also charming, endearing, and energetic personality. When The News of the World published a lurid account of his drug-taking and underage drinking at Club H, the black-walled nightclub Charles had allowed the boys to install at Highgrove, and of his incursions to a nearby pub, The Rattlebone Inn, the Prince of Wales responded wisely. He sent him to Featherstone Lodge, a drug rehabilitation clinic in the then-unfashionable district of Peckham, south-east London, where he sat in on therapy sessions with addicts and learnt that many of the former heroin addicts had started out on cannabis. Harry was accompanied by Mark Dyer, a former Welsh Guards officer whom Charles had appointed as equerry in 1997 and who had accompanied Harry to South Africa, acting as Tiggy’s male counterpart. By this time, Marko, as Harry called Dyer, had become something of a male role model for him, and though Harry was hardly teetotal after this episode, it was enough of an eye-opener for him to avoid surrendering entirely to the lure of drugs.
Instead, he surrendered to the embrace of the Army. ‘Since I was a kid, I enjoyed wearing the combats, running around with a rifle, jumping in a ditch, and living in the rain and stuff,’ Harry said. He intended to enter The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to train as an officer in the Army, but first he headed for Australia in September 2003 for the first leg of his gap year. This was at the behest of his father, who had himself spent a year at the Timbertop campus of the Geelong Grammar School in the south-eastern state of Victoria while he was a teenager. Harry had actually proposed spending his time playing polo in Argentina and skiing in Klosters, but Charles, mindful of the dangers of too much partying, had insisted that Harry follow the example of William, who had gone to Belize and Chile, where he did humanitarian work for the sustainable development charity Raleigh International. Charles therefore organised for Harry to work as a jackeroo at Tooloombilla, a 400,000 acre sheep station in Queensland, after which he would go to Lesotho, to work with children in emulation of his mother.
The Australian part of the gap year was not altogether successful. Although Harry took to the hardy outdoor life of a jackeroo, rounding up animals from horseback from dawn till dusk, and was popular with his fellow workers, he had a more checkered relationship with the press, whom he regarded as intrusive. It did not help that he was fulfilling no official engagements but the Australian public purse had to foot a portion of the $1.3m cost of his protection officers, or that he went to Sydney to watch the Rugby World Cup and was tactless enough to wear an England shirt and cap with the Cross of St. George. The Australian press felt that he owed it to them to give them some access, but rather than oblige, Harry retreated, making such pictures as they got all the more precious. To defuse the situation, Harry invited the press to come and photograph him at the ranch, but rather than answer questions, he simply issued a statement, ‘I have had a great time working out here, meeting people, and learning a bit about how it is to be a jackeroo. And of course the rugby was absolutely fantastic. It’s a great country.’ However, as he made it clear that he was extremely angry with what he regarded as their intrusiveness, the press were not palliated.
Nor, it has to be said, did things improve when he returned to London prior to going to Lesotho. He was photographed lurching from nightclub to nightclub with a series of women, a drink ever-present in his hand. There was a contretemps with a photographer outside one club, and by the time he departed for Lesotho, for the second leg of his gap year, he was well on the way to reinforcing his reputation as a drunken and awkward Lad. Although it was not obvious at the time, this aspect of his personality, while causing adverse comment in the sanctimonious portals of the tabloid press, would work in his favour down the line.
Lesotho came into Harry’s life as a result of Mark Dyer. Dyer was friends with Damien West and his brother Dominic, star of the American TV series The Affair, who had attended Ampleforth College in their native Yorkshire with King Letsie III of Lesotho and his younger brother, Prince Seisso. Having been to South Africa with Harry, and having seen how he fell in love with Africa, when Dyer was told by Harry that he wanted to return there and follow in his mother’s footsteps by doing humanitarian work during his gap year, Dyer arranged for Dominic West to introduce Harry to Prince Seisso. Both men had lost their mothers, Queen Mamohato having died shortly before they met in London. She had been a revered figure in the high-altitude, landlocked kingdom which is entirely surrounded by South Africa, having been Regent three times and having dedicated herself to humanitarian works. Lesotho had the second highest HIV infection rate in the world. Some thirty per cent of the adult population was infected with the virus, life expectancy had dropped from sixty to the thirties, and in 2000 the King had been forced to declare HIV/Aids a natural disaster. Lesotho was also an impoverished kingdom where thousands of children were sent into the mountains to tend herds of cattle and sheep from the age of five, living in wholly masculine environments with neither creature nor emotional comforts.
Taking inspiration from his mother’s attitude to those who suffered from poverty as well as Aids, Harry saw this as an opportunity to make a contribution. He leapt at the chance to spend time in Lesotho.
For the first few weeks, Prince Seisso played host, taking him around and enlightening him to the tremendous problems the people of his impoverished nation faced. ‘We have shown him all sides of life in Lesotho. He has seen people dying of Aids, showing very severe symptoms such as blistering and lesions and with only a few days to live. Harry was very much taken aback. I think it really brought home the whole issue to him. He seems to have a genuine concern to play some role during his stay.’
Harry moved on to work at an Aids orphanage called the Mants’ase Children’s Home in Mohale’s Hoek, planting trees for shade, building fences and generally mucking in doing whatever was required to lend a hand. He has always been good with children, as I can attest to, having seen the patient way he and William played with my sons, despite a decade’s age difference, at polo when they were all much younger. He had brought out footballs for soccer and rugby from England, and used to organise games with the kids. He also developed a touching relationship with a four year old orphan named Matsu Potsane, who refused to leave his side and with whom he has remained in contact over the years.
Despite his antipathy to the press, even at that early age Harry knew how to use
it to garner attention for causes dear to his heart. He therefore got Mark Dyer to invite Tom Bradby of ITN to make a half-hour documentary of his time at the orphanage, stating, ‘This is a country that needs our help.’ He also explained, ‘I’ve always been like this. This is my side that no one gets to see.’ The documentary raised $2m for the Lesotho Red Cross and alerted the world to the desperate straits in which Lesotho’s many victims of the Aids epidemic lived.
The documentary also proved to be a turning point in the public’s perception of Harry. Up to then, the British public had only known of his troubled, troublesome and laddish side. Now they could see for themselves that here was a prince with a heart, a man who loved children, who did not care about colour or class, who wanted to make a difference. This endeared him to the British public, who have a very kind and compassionate dimension. They now began to take him to their own hearts in a way they had done only when he walked behind his mother’s coffin. It was just as well, for Harry’s conduct had provided rich pickings for the press to criticise him. He had appeared at his friend Harry Meade’s twenty second birthday party in the Nazi uniform, complete with swastika, of Hitler’s favourite Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s fabled Afrika Korps. Then his gap year was extended, supposedly owing to a knee injury, to twenty three months, during which time he went to Argentina and was fit enough to work on and play polo at El Remanso polo farm, before taking off, again for Africa, this time to stay with the family of a girl he had started dating. Despite the patina of controversy his publicity generated, Harry was actually becoming ensconced in the public’s affections as one of their favourite royals. From this time onwards, until after his marriage, his popularity would only increase until he was the most popular member of the Royal Family after the Queen.
This process was fostered when Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles on the 8th April 2005. Harry and William’s evident pleasure in their father’s marriage did much to increase the public’s regard for both boys, while also deflecting the jeremiads who had tried in every way to prevent Camilla from playing any part in Charles’s life. Had the press known that for most of the last four years of her life Diana had viewed Tiggy and not Camilla as her threatened replacement, they would have understood why the boys had a more nuanced view of their parents’ marriage than the public did.
One calendar month later, Harry finally entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as Officer Cadet Wales. He joined the Alamein Company, ironic considering the Allied victory at El Alamein had been the beginning of the end for Field Marshal Rommel, who would ultimately be forced by Hitler to commit suicide. The way Harry had breezed through the Regular Commission Board’s intensive and difficult three day entrance examinations showed that he was truly like his mother: unacademic, but when his interest was engaged, bright enough, focused, determined, and possessed of genuine leadership qualities. Ken Wharfe had predicted to Diana, ‘here was a boy destined for a career in the army. It was always where he wanted to do.’ This time he sailed through all the tests, including the leadership and physical tests which could not have been fudged irrespective of any amount of assistance or coaching such as he had received at Eton.
The officer training course at Sandhurst is intended to instil confidence and bring out the leadership qualities in officers. According to Major-General Paul Nanson, Commandant of The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst since 2015 and General Officer Commanding Recruiting and Initial Training since 2018, it’s about ‘teaching new habits and hopefully helping you shake off old ones’. The simplest things are transformative. If you are made to get up early, make up your bed properly, keep your room tidy, iron your clothes up to a desirable standard, stand up straight, have a well-ordered environment, be on time, attend to your duties, you will become disciplined, effective, and self-confident. ‘All of these skills can promote broader empowerment, self-discipline and leadership skills. They equip us for the battlefield, to fight insurgents and prepare for counter-terrorism ops.’ Anyone, according to Nanson, can apply these techniques to develop ‘a confidence that can radiate from our very being. It is not about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It’s about how good you are. If you look good, you feel good. The road to greatness starts with a perfectly folded sock. It’s about having a sense of pride in everything you do, an inner satisfaction in not having cut corners.’
Harry found the inculcation of discipline and good habits life-changing. ‘I was at a stage in my life when I was probably lacking a bit of guidance. I lost my Mum when I was very young and suddenly I was surrounded by a huge number of men in the Army. My Colour Sergeant was someone who teased me at the right moments and gave me the confidence to look forward, to actually have confidence in yourself, to know who you are.’
In April 2006, Harry, by then considerably more straightened out than he had been when he entered Sandhurst, completed his training. He was commissioned a Cornet (Second Lieutenant) in the Blues and Royals. In attendance at his graduation were his grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh, his father and stepmother, and William, who had recently enrolled at Sandhurst having graduated from St. Andrews University in Scotland. Also present were Tiggy, Mark Dyer, and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother who had been appointed both boys’ Private Secretary on the 2nd May 2005.
Harry had finally come of age, and had finally found himself.
CHAPTER 3
Unlike Harry, who found stability when he left school and entered the Army, Meghan’s experience of entering the real world after graduating from university was one of struggle and strife. She returned to California and her father, who was happy to support her while she tried to get a break in the ‘industry’, all thoughts of being a Broadway star replaced with the intention of becoming a star of the screen. If there was one thing she had realised during her studies at Northwestern, it was that she did not have what it takes to become a huge theatre star. She was no Geraldine Page, Patti LuPone, or Angela Lansbury. Such talent as she had equipped her for the screen, not the stage. Hers was not, by common consent of the professionals, a major talent, nor did she have the outstanding beauty of a Charlize Theron or the sex appeal of a Jennifer Lopez to catapult her to quick stardom.
To Tom and his beloved Flower, it did not matter whether she succeeded on the big or small screen, nor even whether she got her break via commercials; all that mattered was that she become as big a star as she could.
Meghan might have hoped that she would be ‘discovered’ the way Lana Turner or one of the Hollywood Heyday movie queens had been, but being a child of Hollywood, she was intelligent enough to realise that this was unlikely. She did not have the natural assets. Although she would later attribute her lack of early success to not being black or white enough, the fact is, her physiognomy not her race was the issue. Tyra Banks and Vanessa Williams had not found their colour a problem, but then, both women were spectacularly beautiful. Although appealing, Meghan was simply not quite so beautiful, sexy, striking, or memorable to jump out at observers the way Banks and Williams did. She did not have a breathtaking enough figure for screen stardom. Her frame was better suited to modelling, except that she was not tall enough to have a successful career as a model. Although she loved the camera, and already knew what to do with it to maximise herself, it simply didn’t love her enough for her to become another Marilyn Monroe, Gina Lollobrigida, or Sophia Loren. Great female stars were either stunningly beautiful or outstanding talents like Meryl Streep, while Meghan, for all her hopes, ambition, and attributes, was neither.
What Meghan had in spades was ambition, but it was an ambitiousness way beyond her discernible attributes, meaning that any success she achieved would be down to her character more than anything else. This could have been a very dispiriting period for her as she went from audition to audition, go-see to go-see, without being chosen. According to people who knew her then, Meghan refused to give up, no matter how dejected she became at times. She firmly believed that she was special
, that she was better than others perceived her to be, that she was so bright and resourceful that she would able to convert any opportunity into something more major once she got her foot through the door. All she needed was a break, any break, even a small break. Once she got that, she’d find a way of making her way into occupying the central position she wanted for herself.
Although at first it looked to observers as if Meghan might not succeed, as if she might be riding for a fall, she was intelligent and determined enough to appreciate what many others did not. Success in the public eye is not only about natural assets. It’s also about perception and public relations. It’s about what you surround yourself with. You don’t have to be a great beauty to be acknowledged as beautiful. All you have to be is astute enough to maximise your assets: stylish enough, photographed enough, praised enough, for the general public to associate you with beauty. Diana, Princess of Wales was a case in point. A reasonably good looking woman with a nose too large, a mouth too small, cheekbones too flat, but good eyes, good colouring, good clothing, good hairstyle, and sufficient exposure for familiarity to breed acceptance of the illusion as reality, a stylish and attractive woman was accepted as the beauty she was through repetition and expert packaging.
All creatures of Hollywood know about Warren Beatty Odds. They apply as much to success on screen as to actors working their way through their address book until they hit upon the girl who will say yes to a last minute date. Rejection is meaningless as long as you accept that sooner or later, success will come your way. This was Meghan’s attitude, and she deliberately chose to be happy irrespective of how long it took for her to achieve the success she wanted. What she did not reckon upon was that all that suppressed misery would have effects down the line.
Meghan and Harry Page 8