Exit Harry’s ‘second dad’, £10 million better off...
An era is drawing to its end: royal ‘mentor’ Mark Dyer has sold his string of London pubs where Prince Harry entertained Meghan Markle.
He is also planning to move out of the capital, bringing to an end his close supervision of the Prince.
Once described as Harry’s ‘second father’, Dyer is a former equerry to Prince Charles. Dyer, who has met Meghan several times and kept her company at Harry’s polo match last weekend, admits now feels like the right time to move on.
The ex-Welsh Guards officer, 51, has sold his pubs in Chelsea, including the rolling Stones’ favourite The Cross Keys, and Sands end in Fulham, where Harry conducted his secret courtship with Meghan.
‘I’ve just sold my pubs — The Brown Cow, Sands end, The Cross Keys — to Cirrus Inns. I trust they’ll take care of them, but I won’t know how well for at least a year or so,’ Dyer tells me.
‘It was a good time to sell. I’m not doing anything new, but I just feel the need to sit down and relax after working hard for 20 years.’
‘I’d had a lot of interest previously, but until recently I didn’t feel like I could let them go.
‘everything has come together at the right time,’ he adds. although he declines to confirm the price, it is believed the business fetched more than £10 million.
Dyer has been mentoring Harry since the mid- 90s when Prince Charles asked him to look after his younger and more wayward son. Dyer had a brief romance with exroyal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and married amanda Kline in 2010.
‘I’m going to move out of London. I want to live in somewhere like Wiltshire or Oxfordshire or one of the Home Counties.
‘ not too far,’ he adds. ‘ I’ll do something again in about five years’ time. ‘I’ll stay in the hospitality industry though, I’m not going to go and make blankets in Ghana or anything like that.’