Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
How Diana’s boys helped her in divorce
PRINCESS Diana realised fully how the break-up of her marriage was impacting on her young Princes, William and Harry.
Her trusted butler Paul Burrell, who she called her “rock”, has revealed how she tried to shield the youngsters from the trauma of her separation from their father, Prince Charles.
And he has told how the two lads responded by assuring their mother that everything would work out fine.
As William and Harry have shared their intimate memories of their tragic mum in a documentary marking the 20th anniversary of her death, Mr Burrell said: “She knew how difficult it was for the boys when she and Charles separated. She felt she had to overcompensate, so that’s why they would go to places like Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Necker Island.
“It was upsetting for them to watch the fall-out of their parents’ marriage and whenever Diana got upset, they would push notes under her door saying, ‘It will be OK’.
“Diana smothered them in love and they always slept in her room during that time and not the nursery.” But in the landmark ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, the princes admit there were lonely times as they struggled with their parents’ separation in 1992 and eventual divorce in 1996.
Harry, now 32, says: “There was the point where our parents split and we never saw our mother enough or we never saw our father enough.
“There was a lot of travelling and a lot of fights on the back seat with my brother, which I would win. I don’t pretend we’re the only people to have to deal with that but it was an interesting way of growing up.”
Harry also admits he has still only cried twice over his mother’s death in a Paris car crash on August 31 in 1997. He adds: “There’s a lot of grief that still needs to be let out.”
The “normality” that Paul Burrell reveals the Princess tried to bring has been depicted in new treasured photos from the Royal Family’s album released to highlight the happy childhood Diana gave her boys.
One of the never-before-seen pictures shows a baby Harry nestling in his mother’s lap on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
But others are an illustration of one aspect of their mum that still tickles the brothers – the way she would dress them in similar outfits.
Harry admits, in the 90-minute documentary, that it is “one thing I would love to ask her now, because I genuinely think that she got satisfaction out of dressing myself and William up in the most bizarre outfits,
normally matching. Looking back at the photos, it just makes me laugh. I think, ‘How could you do that to us?’.”
Along from a picture of the pair dressed as police officers, another shows them on a slide in the grounds of Highgrove both wearing the uniforms of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment.
Another snap is of them attending the Royal Tournament at Olympia in west London in July 1988 in matching outfits. Harry, who describes his mother as “one of the naughtiest parents” laughs: “I like to think that she had great fun in dressing us up. I sure as hell am going to dress my kids up the same way.”
He adds that Diana told him: “Be as naughty as you want, just don’t get caught.”
William, now 35, speaks movingly in the documentary about how he is working to keep Diana’s memory alive for his own children – George, four, and two-year-old Charlotte.
He has photos of her at Kensington Palace and his country home Anmer Hall in Norfolk He explained that, when he tucks his children in at night, he speaks about Diana to remind them “there are two grandmothers in their lives”.
But he also jokes that if Diana were alive she would be a trying grandmother, adding: “She’d love the children to bits but she’d be an absolute nightmare.
“She’d come, probably at bath time, cause an amazing scene, bubbles everywhere, water all over the place and leave.”
The programme features barely any mention of Prince Charles but Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, her fellow Aids campaigner Elton John and some of her closest friends pay touching tributes.
The documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy will be screened on ITV1, tonight, 9pm.
It was upsetting for the boys to watch the fall-out of the marriage PAUL BURRELL PRINCESS DIANA’S BUTLER