Prince William and Harry: Diana's 'love and energy wouldn't go to waste'
Twenty years on Diana's sons remember her, as Prince William admits: "I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become".
Thursday 31 August 2017 09:23, UK
Prince William and Prince Harry have opened up for this 20th anniversary in a way that we've never heard them talk about Princess Diana before.
In two interviews for documentaries they have very deliberately wanted to talk about their mother.
They are grown up now, have their own defined public roles, and this is a chance for them to take ownership of their mother's story. But it's also given a new striking insight into how they coped in the days after her death.
It's still hard to comprehend how two boys, just 12 and 15, walked behind their mother's coffin in front of an international audience of millions. Not shedding a tear as thousands in the crowds wept.
William has talked about hiding behind his fringe as they walked past the crowds, "It wasn't an easy decision and it was a sort of collective family decision to do that. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But we were overwhelmed by how many people turned out, I mean it was just incredible. There is that balance between duty and family and that's what we had to do."
In an interview with Newsweek earlier this year Prince Harry seemed to criticise the decision to make them walk. He told the publication: "I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."
But in a documentary interview he seemed to contradict that saying: "I think it was a group decision, but before I knew it I found myself, you know, with a suit on, with a black tie, white shirt I think, and I was part of it. Genuinely, I don't have an opinion whether that was right or wrong - I'm glad I was part of it. Looking back on it now, I'm very glad I was part of it."
At the time the royal family faced public outcry as they stayed up in Balmoral. No one in the family has ever talked about it. But this has been a chance for William and Harry to defend the Queen and for the first time talk about their fathers support.
Harry said: "One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died. How you deal with that I don't know but, you know, he was there for us. He was the one out of two left and he tried to do his best and to make sure we were protected and looked after. But, you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well."
His brother William added: "At the time, you know, my grandmother wanted to protect her two grandsons and my father as well. Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers and things like that, so there was nothing in the house at all, so we didn't know what was going on. We had the privacy to mourn and kind of collect our thoughts and to try and just have that space away from everybody."
The way the Prince's interact with the press continues to be a talking point today. Hearing them talk about how as young boys they witnessed Diana being pursued by the paparazzi certainly helps to explain further why they are reluctant to let the press get too close.
Prince William said it was often the thing that would upset his mother most. He said: "I don't believe that being chased by 30 guys on motorbikes, who block your path, who spit at you, who shout at you and who react really badly to get a reaction from you and make a woman cry in public to get the photographs - I don't believe that is appropriate. I certainly remember most of the time she ever cried was to do with press intrusion."
In the context of how she died, the role of the paparazzi is even more raw for Prince Harry, he said: "I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her through into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car. And William and I know that, we've been told that numerous times by people that know that was the case.
"She'd had a - quite a severe head injury, but she was very much still alive on the back seat, and those people that - that caused the accident instead of helping were taking photographs of her dying on the back seat. And then those photographs made - made their way back to news desks in this country."
But there have also been touching moments, where they've shared their fondest memories of a woman who was most importantly their mum, including a story about Diana inviting supermodels to Kensington Palace.
Prince William said: "She organised when I came home from school to have Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell waiting at the top of the stairs, I was probably a 12 or 13-year-old boy who had posters of them on his wall.
"I went bright red, and didn't know quite what to say and sort of fumbled and I think pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up. I was completely and utterly awestruck. That was a very funny memory that's lived with me forever..."
Prince Harry also describes her as "a total kid through and through" whose motto was "you can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught".
But most poignantly you get the sense they just want their mother to be proud of them and how they dealt with her death.
Prince William said: "I wouldn't let it break me, I wanted it to make me. I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become. I didn't want her worried or her legacy to be that, you know, William or Harry were completely devastated by it, and that all the hard work and all the love and all the energy that she put into us when we were younger would go to waste."