The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have spoken as never before about Diana, Princess of Wales, in an astonishing interview designed to teach a new generation about their mischievous mother.
The brothers, now aged 35 and 32, have given the most intimate insight yet into life with their mother at Kensington Palace, as they open their family photo album for the nation.
In a 90-minute documentary, featuring her closest family and friends, the Duke and Prince will bring Diana’s memory to life for those too young to remember her, detailing her efforts to give them a normal childhood, her final letters and phone call, and her love of pranks.
They share her own home photograph album, found earlier this year and containing pictures of the princes as children, as the Duke speaks of how he felt her presence as a source of comfort before his 2011 wedding to Catherine Middleton.
It will reveal how their parents’ divorce left them constantly travelling between houses, her death was like an “earthquake”, and how the Queen was at one point so concerned about her that she took friends aside.
Detailing the extraordinary tricks Diana would play on them, including a memorable episode including supermodels at the top of the stairs, the Duke tells how he keeps her memory alive with his own young children, despite predicting she would have been an “absolute nightmare” grandmother.
Introducing the film at a Kensington Palace screening last week, the Duke said he and his younger brother had never spoken so frankly in public before, explaining that the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in August this year felt like an “appropriate time to open up a bit more”.
Saying he hoped the film would encapsulate the woman he would like the public to know, he said: “We won’t be doing this again.
“We won’t speak as openly and publicly about her again, because we feel that hopefully this film will provide the other side: from her closest family and friends, that you might not have heard before, from those who knew her best, and those who want to protect her memory and want to remind people of the person she was.
“The warmth, the humour, and what she was like as a mother.
“Harry and I feel very strongly that we want to celebrate her life, and this is a tribute from her sons to her.” Sitting down with Prince Harry to look at photographs and talk about memories, he added, had been “cathartic”, he said:
“It’s been at first quite daunting opening up so much to camera, but going through this process has been quite healing as well.”
As well as her sons, the film also features Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, who speaks frankly about how the bitter divorce of their parents affected her, Sir Elton John, who campaigned with her and sang at her funeral, and a host of friends including William Van Straubenzee, Lady Carolyn Warren and Anne Beckwith-Smith.
The Duke and Prince have also taken part in a BBC documentary, due out later this year and focusing specifically on the week following the Parisian car crash.
They last month marked Diana’s birthday by rededicating her grave at Althorp, the Spencer family home, and will commemorate the anniversary of her death in August.
“We want her legacy to live on in our work, and we feel this is an appropriate way of doing that,” said the Duke.
“To remind not only the people who knew her, but also you have to remember this is 20 years ago now that she died and there are people who don’t even know about her.
Source: The Telegraph, UK
