The People's Prince
If a royal prince can ever really come close to being a ‘regular guy’, then Prince Harry ticks all the boxes, not least in his full-time career as an Apache Helicopter Pilot with the Army Air Corps. As part of 622 Squadron, Captain Wales, as he is known at work, returned from his most recent tour of duty based at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, earlier this year, having flown more than 100 surveillance, escort and close combat missions.
This week, ahead of his attendance at Sunday’s annual wreath-laying observance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, Prince Harry officially visited the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey for the first time. Accompanying his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, the prince planted a cross in front of memorials to two unknown British soldiers from the First and Second World Wars.
Like his brother, Harry is passionate about promoting the welfare of all those who currently serve or have served in Britain’s Armed Forces; and this month, despite a broken toe, which he vows will not deter him, he is set to join groups of armed forces personnel, injured in the line of duty, on the 208-mile ‘Walking With The Wounded South Pole Allied Challenge’. In his speech at the launch of the event, which it is hoped will raise £2m for injured service personnel, Harry, at times in fine comedic form, said, ‘In three short years, Walking With The Wounded has come from a wonderful, faintly mad idea, involving four nutters... to a multinational challenge, with teams from the UK, the Commonwealth and America... racing each other to the bottom of the world. Though we are not allowed to officially call it a race!’
As a charity with which he has been closely involved since its inception, the current South Pole ‘challenge’ mirrors the one made two years ago by a team of wounded servicemen to the North Pole. Harry joined the group for five days at the start of their unaided, fundraising trek high above the Arctic Circle.
Prince Harry, though currently focusing on his military career, is keenly aware of the importance of each of the philanthropic causes with which he is actively involved. Foremost among them is Sentebale, the charity he cofounded with his great friend Prince Seeiso of Lesotho. Inspired by his mother Princess Diana and dedicated to her memory, the organisation whose name is a Sotho word meaning ‘forget-me-not’, was set up to support disadvantaged young people, particularly those orphaned by HIV and AIDS.
Last month, however, after he returned from Australia, where he represented the Queen at the International Fleet Review in Sydney Harbour, and where ‘Harrymania’ engulfed the city – the prince was present at an event of an altogether more personal nature. The christening of Prince George of Cambridge has, according to one ‘insider’, tapped into a certain ‘broodiness’ in the baby prince’s proud Uncle Harry. And, indeed, if it is true that William and Catherine’s marriage, followed by the birth of their son, has been the ‘real game-changer’ some claim it to have been – ‘Harry never stops talking about marriage and children,’ it is said – then marriage may be the next of Prince Harry’s rites of passage. Enter 24-year-old Cressida Bonas, the pretty blonde daughter of 1960s ‘It Girl’ Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon and her third husband, Jeffrey Bonas.
Believed to have been introduced 18 months ago by Harry’s cousin and ‘Cressie’s’ good friend Princess Eugenie, friends claim that since returning from a week’s holiday on safari in Botswana’s Okavango Delta this summer, an adventure they shared with Eugenie and her boyfriend Jack Brooksbank, the prince and the freespirited dance graduate ‘have been with each other as much as possible’. This, as has been widely reported, has included incognito visits to music festivals and the cinema, staying home with takeaway suppers at Harry’s apartment at Kensington Palace, attending a private James Blunt concert, and slipping into the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End for a performance of the acclaimed American musical The Book Of Mormon.
Last month, though not for the first time, Cressida also joined the prince and a few close friends for a shooting weekend at Sandringham, the Queen’s private estate in Norfolk. All are signs of an everdeepening relationship, but what of the future? Well, until such time as an engagement is announced, speculation will inevitably continue to surround the world’s most eligible royal bachelor. And while some of her friends maintain that Cressida is ‘a levelheaded girl who won’t rush into anything’, it still remains to be seen just how wild she is about Harry.
Either way, these are busy times for Harry and his star appears to be rising. Tales of his carousing – such as his rather raucous visit to Las Vegas – are quickly forgiven and forgotten, and he amply represents Britain’s ‘modern’ Royal Family.
This week, ahead of his attendance at Sunday’s annual wreath-laying observance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, Prince Harry officially visited the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey for the first time. Accompanying his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, the prince planted a cross in front of memorials to two unknown British soldiers from the First and Second World Wars.
Like his brother, Harry is passionate about promoting the welfare of all those who currently serve or have served in Britain’s Armed Forces; and this month, despite a broken toe, which he vows will not deter him, he is set to join groups of armed forces personnel, injured in the line of duty, on the 208-mile ‘Walking With The Wounded South Pole Allied Challenge’. In his speech at the launch of the event, which it is hoped will raise £2m for injured service personnel, Harry, at times in fine comedic form, said, ‘In three short years, Walking With The Wounded has come from a wonderful, faintly mad idea, involving four nutters... to a multinational challenge, with teams from the UK, the Commonwealth and America... racing each other to the bottom of the world. Though we are not allowed to officially call it a race!’
As a charity with which he has been closely involved since its inception, the current South Pole ‘challenge’ mirrors the one made two years ago by a team of wounded servicemen to the North Pole. Harry joined the group for five days at the start of their unaided, fundraising trek high above the Arctic Circle.
Prince Harry, though currently focusing on his military career, is keenly aware of the importance of each of the philanthropic causes with which he is actively involved. Foremost among them is Sentebale, the charity he cofounded with his great friend Prince Seeiso of Lesotho. Inspired by his mother Princess Diana and dedicated to her memory, the organisation whose name is a Sotho word meaning ‘forget-me-not’, was set up to support disadvantaged young people, particularly those orphaned by HIV and AIDS.
Last month, however, after he returned from Australia, where he represented the Queen at the International Fleet Review in Sydney Harbour, and where ‘Harrymania’ engulfed the city – the prince was present at an event of an altogether more personal nature. The christening of Prince George of Cambridge has, according to one ‘insider’, tapped into a certain ‘broodiness’ in the baby prince’s proud Uncle Harry. And, indeed, if it is true that William and Catherine’s marriage, followed by the birth of their son, has been the ‘real game-changer’ some claim it to have been – ‘Harry never stops talking about marriage and children,’ it is said – then marriage may be the next of Prince Harry’s rites of passage. Enter 24-year-old Cressida Bonas, the pretty blonde daughter of 1960s ‘It Girl’ Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon and her third husband, Jeffrey Bonas.
Believed to have been introduced 18 months ago by Harry’s cousin and ‘Cressie’s’ good friend Princess Eugenie, friends claim that since returning from a week’s holiday on safari in Botswana’s Okavango Delta this summer, an adventure they shared with Eugenie and her boyfriend Jack Brooksbank, the prince and the freespirited dance graduate ‘have been with each other as much as possible’. This, as has been widely reported, has included incognito visits to music festivals and the cinema, staying home with takeaway suppers at Harry’s apartment at Kensington Palace, attending a private James Blunt concert, and slipping into the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End for a performance of the acclaimed American musical The Book Of Mormon.
Last month, though not for the first time, Cressida also joined the prince and a few close friends for a shooting weekend at Sandringham, the Queen’s private estate in Norfolk. All are signs of an everdeepening relationship, but what of the future? Well, until such time as an engagement is announced, speculation will inevitably continue to surround the world’s most eligible royal bachelor. And while some of her friends maintain that Cressida is ‘a levelheaded girl who won’t rush into anything’, it still remains to be seen just how wild she is about Harry.
Either way, these are busy times for Harry and his star appears to be rising. Tales of his carousing – such as his rather raucous visit to Las Vegas – are quickly forgiven and forgotten, and he amply represents Britain’s ‘modern’ Royal Family.