For me personally, as I said, I want to serve my country. I’ve done it once, and I’m still in the army, I feel as though I should get the opportunity to do it again.
What hell, being an adult!
The Heir and the Spare – there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity. I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter.
It wasn’t that she felt no emotions. On the contrary, I always thought that Granny experienced all the normal human emotions. She just knew better than the rest of us mortals how to control them.
He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature. I was showing my true nature, he said, by seeking to atone. Seeking absolution.
Is each generation doomed to unwittingly repeat the sins of the last?
I recall one headline, addressed pointedly at Granny: Show Us You Care. How rich, coming from the same fiends who “cared” so much about Mummy that they chased her into a tunnel from which she never emerged.
My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare. I didn’t complain about it, but I didn’t need to dwell on it either. Far better, in my mind, not to think about certain facts, such as the cardinal rule for royal travel: Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.
She said: That was everything. She said: That is a man. My love. She said: That is not a Spare.
With bagpipes it’s not the tune, it’s the tone.
In this mixed-up world, this pain-filled life, we’d done it. we’d managed to find each other.
Weddings were joyous occasions, sure, but they were also low-key funerals, because after saying their vows people tended to disappear.
Study, concentration, requires an alliance with the mind, and in my teen years I was waging all-out war with mine.
He was, I realize now, one of the most truthful people I’ve ever known, and he knew a secret about truth that many people are unwilling to accept: it’s usually painful.
Being royal, it turned out, wasn’t all that far from being onstage. Acting was acting, no matter the context.
He didn’t seem sad, just ready. You have to know when it’s time to go, Harry.
Also, the notorious Wallis Simpson. Also, her doubly notorious husband Edward, the former King and my great-great-uncle. After Edward gave up his throne for Wallis, after they fled Britain, both of them fretted about their ultimate return – both obsessed about being buried right here. The Queen, my grandmother, granted their plea. But she placed them at a distance from everyone else, beneath a stooped plane tree. One last finger wag, perhaps.
Adults called it the nursery. Willy had the larger half, with a double bed, a good-sized basin, a cupboard with mirrored doors, a beautiful window looking down on the courtyard, the fountain, the bronze statue of a roe deer buck. My half of the room was far smaller, less luxurious. I never asked why. I didn’t care. But I also didn’t need to ask. Two years older than me, Willy was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare.
He spoke to me with the quality one often encounters in truly wise people – forgiveness. He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature.
Maybe she was omnipresent for the very same reason that she was indescribable – because she was light, pure and radiant light, and how can you really describe light? Even Einstein struggled with that one.