Prince Harry

by Penny Junor

  SANDHURST

  The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, at Camberley in Surrey, has been training leaders of the British Army—and some distinguished foreigners too—for two hundred years. In the twenty-first century, it is not for the faint-hearted: the sophistication and precision of modern warfare has seen to that. It is forty-four weeks of getting up at dawn, polishing boots, ironing uniform, intensive drill sessions and punishing physical exercise. It is tough, brutal, relentless, intolerant of mistakes, failure or weakness; and there are no concessions for princes. It is not for the proud or the sensitive; it’s not for people who might have qualms about killing the enemy, or who don’t like being shouted at, sworn at and told what to do—and when and how to do it—without question.

  The Prince of Wales delivered Harry to the academy but, once his father had been introduced to all the top brass and given Harry a playful punch on the arm by way of farewell, the third in line to the throne became plain Officer Cadet Wales and there were no dispensations. He was treated no differently from any other recruit—except that not every other recruit was of such interest to the media. He had not been there a month when a cadet, supposed to be him, was splashed over the front page of the Sun. “The Sun wrongly identified him,” says Paddy Harverson. “They smuggled someone into Sandhurst to say the place was a security risk and photographed what they said was Prince Harry and it wasn’t him, it was another ginger-haired soldier. I pointed this out and the managing editor went on Sky News and said, ‘I’ll resign if I’m wrong,’ and I said, ‘Well you’re wrong mate!’ They didn’t bother to ask Arthur Edwards who’s been photographing him since the year dot to see if it was him, or ask the royal correspondent. It was just: tall, red-haired, front-page splash. It caused all sorts of ructions; the Defence Secretary demanding an inquiry into the security lapses and in fact Sandhurst had always allowed civilians in to use the library. The Sun journalist had got in disguised as a warfare student on a research assignment. The end result was that Sandhurst had to put a whole clamp down on civilians using the facilities. All that for a cheap front page about a security scare with the wrong guy?”

  Everyone arrived that first day with a bag of belongings and their own ironing board. They were all in it together. The belongings had to be arranged in a set pattern in their rooms—toothbrush and toothpaste with exact spaces in between. Every morning, beds had to be made uniformly and flawlessly, boots polished like mirrors, uniforms ironed to perfection, and everything ready for inspection at 5.30 a.m. Mistakes, creases, rumples were met with a terrifying barrage of abuse, and press-ups by way of punishment followed, often for the whole group.

  It is an environment in which strong bonds are forged, second only to those forged in actual combat, where the enemy is not simply exhaustion and the Colour Sergeant yelling at you all. Those cadets who come through the forty-four weeks—and a high percentage don’t—know that effective teamwork is essential to survival both at Sandhurst and in places like Afghanistan. Active service is what these young men and women are training for, and want. Many choose which regiment they want to join at the end of it according to which will give them the best chance of frontline service. And frontline service was all that Harry was interested in. “I wouldn’t have joined the Army unless I was going to [fight]. If they said I couldn’t then there’s no way I would drag my sorry ass through Sandhurst. The last thing I would want to do is have my soldiers sent away to Iraq or somewhere like that and for me to be held back at home twiddling my thumbs, thinking ‘What about David or Derek or whoever?’ It’s not the way anyone should really work.”

  Like every recruit, he was confined to barracks for the first five weeks with no visitors, no laptops, no mobile phones and no alcohol. They are renowned for being one of the toughest experiences most people will ever go through. Many of them are begging to leave after the second day and 15 percent drop out by the end of the five weeks.

  In his twenty-first birthday interview, Harry admitted “the first five weeks—the infamous first five weeks”—had been “a bit of a struggle.” He had lost weight, been treated like a piece of dirt and been shouted at by Sergeant Majors but he said he had got through it and admitted it had done him good. “Nobody’s really supposed to love it, it’s Sandhurst,” he said. “Obviously, you’ve got a platoon of thirty guys so everyone’s going through the same thing and the best thing about that is being able to fit in as just a normal person.”

  There is no denying Harry found it tough going. At twenty, his body was not as strong as it would have been if he had enrolled a few years later, after university, as most of his fellow cadets had. “You get stronger at the beginning of your twenties,” says an aide. “It didn’t show but I know he found it physically very challenging. He was a lot less strong than he is now, but he did well there.”

  A former member of the Household says he got into Sandhurst and immediately thrived. He reckons, “The Army was the making of the man. The man was there, he just needed time to be molded and matured. I’m not going to be a pop psychologist and guess at what his mother’s death meant to his maturity but there is no doubt he matured quickly in the forces and prospered; and as we know he loved it because he could be one of the guys, could be ‘normal.’ He’s an absolutely natural soldier, a natural leader.”

  This same aide remembers going out to organize the media on a skiing holiday one year and afterwards skiing with William, Harry and all their mates. “Almost everyone was older than Harry but he was always the leader down the slopes—there’s always someone who decides where to go and everyone follows him. Always the bravest and the first off the edge. Those qualities shone through, you could see he would make a great soldier and he has done. Not a crazy risk taker, just ‘Okay, let’s go for it.’ Physically brave but not foolhardy. He’s smarter than people give him credit for. He’s not academically smart in terms of degrees but he’s got natural street-smart, really good intuitive intelligence. He often comes up with the best idea instinctively. Everyone else is thinking it through, working it out, and he will just come out with something and everyone will go, ‘that’s not a bad idea,’ and it will be the answer.”

  A friend agrees about the good effect the Army had on him. “I would say Harry was probably a bit of an idiot at Eton; quite a lot of the people I know who were there with him weren’t that impressed. He was a bit immature, a bit of a loose cannon. After leaving school, he was good fun but in the slightly edgy way of somebody who’s cutting loose and probably is capable of being too immature, too often. And in his gap year he still had elements of that. Somewhere between that period and him becoming an Apache pilot, he settled down into being a really decent guy who people really like. And if you’d asked me in his gap year, do you think he’s got the bottle to compete with the best of the best in the Army? I would think, not sure. The Army is great, it knocks the shit out of a lot of people and at some point in there Harry became quite a substantial human being.”

  In some respects, William, who joined his brother at Sandhurst in January 2006, found the course easier. At twenty-three he was physically stronger and, having heard from Harry about the horrors he could expect, he was better prepared.

  Harry and William shared everything with each other. “It’s amazing how close we’ve become,” Harry said of his brother. “I mean ever since our mother died, obviously we were close, but he is the one person on this earth who I can actually really, you know, we can talk about anything. We understand each other and we give each other support. Luckily we’ve had the chance of growing up together, going through the same stuff as each other. If I find myself in really hard times, then at least I can turn to him, and vice versa, and at least we can look after each other.”

  “Harry has been a rock for William,” says a close aide. “It’s not just the other way round. He’s a very, very cool guy and very good at listening when it matters; very empathetic. He knows when to stop taking the mickey, when someone needs a shoulder to cry on or a helping hand. He will
be of immense and immeasurable support to William all the way through, even if sometimes it’s perceived as being, certainly early on, the other way round. Harry’s a real influence.”

  A friend of their mother’s who has known them on and off for most of their lives, agrees. “Emotionally and empathetically, Harry is amazingly gifted but I think he’s much angrier than William and my guess is he hasn’t been able to work that through.

  “They are amazing with each other, a great duo. They bring the best out of each other; Harry forces William to be more spontaneous and freer, and William helps steady Harry up and protects him from himself. They parent each other and I would have thought they were doing so when their mother was still alive. It can’t have been easy with Diana. It’s very sad for children seeing their mum unhappy. They played really well together and trusted each other in a way that they couldn’t trust anyone else in the world.”

  Their approach to life could not be more different, but trust has always been an issue with both of them. William is cautious and conservative; and, in his friendships, his tendency is to cling to what one friend calls, “a masonic group” of long-term trusted friends. Whereas with Harry it’s different. “Harry has his mates but it’s not the masonic brotherhood. That’s the interesting thing about Harry. His approach to it is to be so open about who he is. He says, ‘Fuck it, let’s engage with the world. Yeah, I know who I am but hey, so what, who are you?’ kind of thing. He’s simply so in-your-face about who he is that everyone quite soon forgets and the awkwardness disappears. He wears his heart so heavily on his sleeve: ‘Just take me as I am,’ and that seems to work for him. He’s the reverse of William in a way. Harry will happily meet up with someone, go out, go to a bar, spend time chatting to the people there until four in the morning. That’s why it’s so extraordinary that there hasn’t been more stuff written about him over the years because he is not remotely guarded in anything he does. And I think that’s why people like him so much. Yes, he fucks up quite often, quite hard, but at least he seems like a nice guy. That’s what I mean about everyone really loving him. It’s really true to say that he has no airs and graces, really true.

  “You’d never say that about his father; you’d say his brother had many fewer airs and graces than his father but he’s still… The interesting breakdown is how much is nature and position, and how much is nurture and where they found themselves. Is William a lot more cautious and conservative because he has to be, or are they just innately who they are? I don’t know what the answer is, but what is clear is that they were both born into the same rather tricky circumstance, they’ve decided to approach it entirely differently, and Harry is very open.”

  HACKED OFF

  Sandhurst was one place where, behind the heavily fortified gates, this tendency to be open should have posed no danger at all. But stories inexplicably crept out. The News of the World headline in December 2005, for example, declared, “Harry’s aide helps out on Sandhurst exams.” The story alleged that Harry had contacted Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton with a plea for help with an essay on the siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1980, which the SAS successfully brought to an end.

  It was not until the phone-hacking trial was underway in 2013 that the source of this and other stories became clear. For some years the News of the World had been hacking the voicemails of several members of the Royal Family and their Household.

  “Just wondered if you, bizarre question, have you any information at all or you know where to get information from about the siege of the Iranian Embassy because I need to write an essay quite quickly on that,” Harry had said. “I just need some information. I have got most of the stuff but if you have got any extra information or websites that you know please, please, please email it to me.”

  They eventually began to put two and two together, but for years William and Harry had been convinced that someone around them was leaking stories to the tabloids. It seemed to be the only possible explanation for the constant trickle of stories, some of them trivial, some more substantial, but all of them private. It created a corrosive atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust within the Household and their circle of friends. They became suspicious of everyone; the constant refrain was: “Did you tell him? Is he trustworthy?”

  The penny finally dropped in November 2005, when a short piece appeared in the News of the World about Tom Bradby, who was by this time ITN’s political editor. When he had been making The Forgotten Kingdom, about Harry’s trip to Lesotho, he had used some bits of film that Harry had shot himself with his own camera during his gap year. Harry had simply handed over all the film he’d taken and, finding a lot of the material very funny, Tom had offered to edit it into a video for Harry. William had seen it and thought it was great, so Tom had offered to do the same for him. And they had been trying to find a time when they were both free to meet up.

  “If ITN do a stocktake on their portable editing suites this week,” said the piece in Clive Goodman’s “Blackadder” column, “they might notice they’re one down. That’s because their pin-up political editor Tom Bradby has lent it to close pal Prince William so he can edit together all his gap-year videos and DVDs into one very posh home movie.”

  Tom and William had had a phone conversation on the Saturday—the very day before the piece appeared—and agreed to meet on the Monday; Tom would come to Clarence House with some equipment.

  When he arrived on the Monday, he and William just looked at each other and said, “How the hell did the News of the World get that?” William then said that he’d been equally puzzled by a story about a knee injury he’d had that had appeared in the same column the previous week.

  “William pulled a tendon in his knee after last week’s kids’ kickabout with Premiership club Charlton Athletic,” wrote Goodman. “Now medics have put him on the sick list. He has seen Prince Charles’s personal doc and is now having physiotherapy at Cirencester hospital, near his country home Highgrove.”

  William had been thinking the surgeon, or his secretary, must have spoken to the News of the World, but he knew, and Tom agreed, it was unthinkable. Then they started going through all the alternatives. Tom knew from his years as a royal correspondent that during Diana’s lifetime tabloid reporters had listened to one another’s voicemail messages to get stories. If they were doing it then, why not now? Slowly it dawned. After they had spoken on the Saturday, William had phoned Helen Asprey and left a message on her voicemail asking her to leave Tom’s name with security at the gate. After he had seen the doctor, he had left a message on Helen’s voicemail asking her to fix physiotherapy in Cirencester.

  “The other one,” says a member of the Household, “was William leaving a jokey message on Harry’s voicemail pretending to be Chelsy and giving him a bollocking in a South African accent—there’d been a story about him visiting a lap-dancing club. This story ran in the News of the World. How did they know William had left a message on Harry’s voicemail?

  “At the same time, three of us noticed in conversation that all of our voicemail was playing up. We were discovering messages that had been listened to but not by us. They were being saved as having been listened to, as in ‘You have four new messages and six saved messages,’ and I would always listen to a message then delete it and I think the others did too. Initially we thought it was a fault with the phones but we had different phones and one was on a different network, so we thought how does that work? I remember sitting in Helen’s room and it dawned on us that there might be more to this, that the News of the World stories and the funny voicemail situation might be connected, so we called in Royalty Protection, who are always the first port of call.”

  Because of the security implications, in that their messages were often about the Princes’ flights and movements, the police brought in the anti-terrorism squad, who very quickly confirmed that their messages were being hacked and discovered who was doing it. Although, as one of them says, “It wasn’t rocket science.

  “We decided very quickly t
o prosecute—William and Harry were very angry and very keen to get something done about it. We told the police, and off we went. There was quite a long period when we carried on as normal while they gathered the evidence, knowing that they were listening to our voicemails. It was evil stuff. I never believed it was just us—as it all subsequently unraveled.”

  Clive Goodman was one of two men arrested in August 2006 and imprisoned in January 2007 for four months for intercepting mobile phone messages, but they were just the tip of the iceberg—as Lord Justice Leveson discovered, and the criminal cases involving News International journalists and executives attest.

  “I remember once dealing with Clive Goodman over a story about Harry,” says a former member of his team. “It was a weekend, when Harry was in the papers a lot, and he obviously had a personal animosity against him; he didn’t like what he saw in Harry. He unleashed this vicious diatribe down the phone to me with lots of swear words about what a terrible man he was.”

  “The phone-hacking thing was a complete liberation to them,” says a friend, “because all those stories just stopped; they don’t appear anymore. With those arrests, they realized that their friends weren’t talking and don’t talk and that has helped them relax about things.”

  But both Princes, he believes, are still very angry about it; and angry about what happened to their mother and father. During his twenty-first birthday interview, Harry talked about his compulsion to read the newspapers even though they upset him, and only half jokingly said that he made a note of who the writers and photographers were “for use later.”