In the princes’ own words
Among the personal details William and Harry shared about their mum was the heartbreaking revelation that they rushed a phone call with Diana on the day she died, not realising it would be the last time they would ever speak to her.
The pair were at Balmoral with the rest of the royal family when Diana rang them from Paris, where she was on holiday with Dodi Fayed. “Harry and I were running around, playing with our cousins and having a very good time,” William recalls in the documentary. He cut the conversation short because he wanted to get back to the games. “If I’d known what would happen, I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it.”
Harry, meanwhile, admits that he was never a fan of talking to either of his parents on the phone. “We spent far too much time speaking on the phone rather than speaking to each other... because of the way the situation was.”
He says he can’t really remember what he said to his mum. “What I do remember is regretting how short the phone call was. And if I’d known that was the last time I’d speak to my mother, the things I would have said to her – I have to deal with that for the rest of my life.”
There were many more poignant memories from both brothers.
William on talking to his children Prince George and Princess Charlotte about Granny Diana, who they’ll never know...
“It’s hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her so she cannot really provide that level of detail so I do, regularly putting George and Charlotte to bed and talking about her just to try to remind them that there are two grandmothers. It’s important that they know who she was and that she existed.
“She’d be an absolute nightmare grandmother. She’d love the children to bits but she’d come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing scene with bubbles everywhere and bath water all over the place, then just leave!”
Harry on dealing with his parents’ divorce...
“The two of us were bouncing between the two of them and we probably never saw our mother enough, or saw our father enough. There was a lot of travelling and a lot of fights on the back seat with my brother... which I’d win.”
William on the cards his mum sent him at Eton...
“She loved the rudest cards you could imagine. Usually she found something very embarrassing, a very funny card, and then wrote very nice stuff inside. But I dared not open it in case the teachers or anyone else in the class had seen it.”
Harry on Diana’s desire to give her sons a normal upbringing...
“If that means taking us for a burger or sneaking us into the cinema, driving through the country lanes with the roof of her classic BMW down, listening to Enya, I think that was all part of her being a mum.”
William on being told his mum had died...
“It was as if an earthquake had run through the house. Your mind is completely split and it took a while for it to sink in.”
Harry on the outpouring of grief for his mother...
“There was William and I walking around Kensington Palace gardens and the sea of flowers all the way from the palace gates. I was thinking to myself, ‘How is it that so many people that never met this woman – my mother – can be crying and showing more emotion than I am actually feeling?’”
William on remembering his mother...
“There are not many days that go by when I don’t think of her. My mother lives with me every day. I give thanks that I was lucky enough to be her son and I got to know her for the 15 years that I did.”
Harry on how he grieved...
“I was so young. I grew up thinking not having a mum was normal. My way of dealing with it was to ignore it, not deal with it. The 10 years I was in the army, I just sort of dug my head in the sand and it was just white noise.
“The first time I cried was at the funeral on the island [at her family home, Althorp Park, where she was buried] and probably only once since then. So there’s a lot of grief to get out there.”