The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘What happened to me with my mother’ spurs William on
Prince talks of motivation for mental health campaign
The Duke of Cambridge has said the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, spurred him on to tackle the issue of mental health.
Speaking after the preview screening of a BBC documentary about a group of London Marathon runners with psychological problems, he also said the more “influential and very important” people who open up about their “issues and their battles”, the better.
His words are likely to be seen as praise for his brother, Prince Harry, who has received plaudits for disclosing he sought counselling to come to terms with his mother’s death.
The 20th anniversary of Diana’s death is this summer. William was 15 years old and Harry just 12 when she was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31 1997.
The duke, along with his wife, Kate, and Harry, has been campaigning through their mental health campaign, Heads Together, to encourage the nation to speak about their psychological problems or to be a sympathetic ear.
Lady Gaga has joined their campaign, teaming up with William for a video, watched by thousands online, where they encouraged people to open up about their feelings and bring an end to the “shame” of talking about mental health issues.
After the screening in central London of the first instalment of the two-part Mind over Marathon documentary, William said: “As you can see, you know, I have my own reasons for being involved in mental health – what happened to me with my mother when I was younger – but equally the charitable work I do at the moment and the areas I’m involved in, it all comes back to mental health.”
Without notes, he added: “So many parts of what I go and visit and people I meet, mental health is at the heart of all their problems, whether it’s homelessness, veterans’ welfare, addiction, many of that stems from mental health issues.
“And we need to make mental health normal, we need to treat it the same way we treat physical health, it has to be seen in the same way.”