On causes close to his heart
Talking about the sadness he experienced after his Air Ambulance crew transferred a young person who had been hit by a car to hospital and the importance of opening up about mental health struggles, William says: “It really hit me weeks later. It was like someone had put a key in a lock and opened it without me giving permission to do that. I felt like the whole world was dying. It’s an extraordinary feeling. You just feel everyone’s in pain, everyone’s suffering, and that’s not me. I’ve never felt that before.
“My personal life and everything was absolutely fine. I was happy at home and happy at work, but I kept looking at myself, going: ‘Why am I feeling like this? Why do I feel so sad?’ And I started to realise that, actually, you’re taking home people’s trauma, people’s sadness, and it’s affecting you.
“Talking about those jobs definitely helped – sharing them with the team and, ultimately, in one case, meeting the family and the patient involved who made a recovery, albeit not a full recovery, but made a recovery.”
The Duke also discusses visiting Africa with his father and brother in 1995 and later working with conservationist Ian Craig in Kenya, who taught him the importance of listening to people living there.
He says: “Ian’s model very much reaffirmed what I’d learnt from my younger days with my mother, who took me to a homeless shelter to meet people who were down on their luck and who had a very difficult time in life. She wanted to make sure that I understood that life happens very much outside of palace walls and this is what’s going on, this is the real world here. And we sat there and we listened. I think listening is one of our greatest tools, one of our greatest assets to understand each other.
“One of the things I’m trying to do with the Earthshot Prize is very much to listen and to lift up people’s voices to be heard.
You take somebody who’s got a brilliant idea and allow them to be heard by a much bigger audience, brought to a much higher platform, and make a difference. But in order to do that, you’ve got to listen and you’ve got to hear them.
“How do we ever expect to tackle some of these big, big issues i f we’re not all together? I f we’re not all pulling in the same direction and that everyone’s voice matters?”
‘ I was happy at home and work, but I kept looking at myself, going: “Why am
I feeling like this? Why do I feel so sad?”’