Prince Harry haunted by memories of Princess Diana's funeral


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The Duke of Sussex has described how he is still haunted by memories of his mother’s funeral.

In a new documentary series on mental health he made with Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry said the lingering grief he has over Diana's death resurfaces whenever he hears the clacking sound of horses' hooves on The Mall, the road outside Buckingham Palace.

The series, The Me You Can't See, streamed on Apple TV+, comes out a day after the release of an independent inquiry in Britain found that a BBC journalist used falsified documents to land a sensational 1995 sit-down interview with Princess Diana.

Harry was 12 when he and his brother William walked behind their mother’s coffin under the gaze of thousands of mourners and the world’s media.

“Sharing the grief of my mother's death with the world,” he said.

“For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses' hooves going along the pavement. Along The Mall, the red brick road. By this point I was, both of us were, in shock.”

He said he was doing “what was expected of me” even though he was experiencing profound grief.

“It was like I was outside of my body,” he said.

“Showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, ‘This is my mum. You never even met her’.”

Asked in a media interview about the new series, the duke said he felt trepidation about returning to the UK for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.

“I was worried about it, I was afraid,” he said.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex previously sat with Oprah at length for an interview broadcast in early March, triggering a major crisis for the royal family.

Prince Harry used the latest interview to repeat his criticisms of his family before suggesting he wanted “reconciliation and healing”.

He said his family turned a blind eye to Meghan’s mental health struggles, including that she had considered committing suicide.

"I thought my family would help, but every single ask, request, warning, whatever it is, just got met with total silence or total neglect," Harry said of his wife's depression after the birth of their son Archie.

He said he felt ashamed of going to his family for help because he knew "that I'm not going to get from my family what I need”, and this was one of the biggest reasons why he and Meghan left Britain for California.

“Certainly now I will never be bullied into silence,” the duke said.

“We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.”

Harry said he drew parallels between his mother's story and that of Meghan's. Diana died alongside Egyptian film producer Dodi Al Fayed, who she had been dating for several months.

Diana, Princess of Wales - in pictures

"My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn't white,' he said.

"And now look what's happened. It's incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life. Like, the list is growing. And it all comes back to the same people, the same business model, the same industry."

Harry recalled sitting in the back of his mother's car while she, in tears, was pursued by photographers.
"One of the feelings that comes up for me always is the helplessness. Being a guy and being too young to help a woman, in this case your mother, and that happened every single day," he said.
Harry said he buried his feelings, but drank heavily and suffered panic attacks and anxiety in his 20s, and still freaks out when he sees cameras.
"I was so angry with what happened to her [Diana] and the fact there was no justice at all ... the same people that chased her through that tunnel photographed her dying on the back seat of that car," he said.
"The clicking of cameras, and the flash of cameras makes my blood boil. It makes me angry. It takes me back to what happened to my mum, what I experienced as a kid."

Harry focused criticism particularly on his father, who has previously been accused of indifference towards his children.

"My father used to say to me when I was younger, to both William and I: ‘It was like that for me, so it's going to be like that for you’," he said.

"That doesn't make sense. Just because you suffered that doesn't mean that your kids have to suffer. In fact quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences you had, you can make it right for your kids."

Harry, 36, said he lived through “a nightmare time in my life” between the ages of 28 and 32. He said during that time he was abusing alcohol and drugs to mask the grief of losing his mother.

He said Meghan encouraged him to seek help for his mental health.

“It definitely made it a lot easier, but the heart still pounds,” he said of therapy.

Keep it fun and engaging

Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.

“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.

His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.

He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.

The biog

Siblings: five brothers and one sister

Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota

Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym

Favourite place: UAE

Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera

What he did to pass the time during the trip: listen to audio books

Mane points for safe home colouring
  • Natural and grey hair takes colour differently than chemically treated hair
  • Taking hair from a dark to a light colour should involve a slow transition through warmer stages of colour
  • When choosing a colour (especially a lighter tone), allow for a natural lift of warmth
  • Most modern hair colours are technique-based, in that they require a confident hand and taught skills
  • If you decide to be brave and go for it, seek professional advice and use a semi-permanent colour
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Rating: 1/5

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