When Harry needed love, where was God?

Prince Harry has written a book that people, whose families were torn apart when they were children, with lurid accounts in the press of their parents’ divorce, will really understand. Add to that the indescribable tragedy of losing a beloved mother at the age of twelve, compounded by a truly insensitive response by their nearest and dearest adults, and the agony of those early years reverberates into adulthood.

Spare?(Penguin Random House UK) is Harry’s version of a turbulent and supposedly privileged life. It is written from his perspective, and no doubt others may have other views, but there are some themes which stick out, sometimes by what he says, but often by what he doesn’t say.

One Sunday in August 1997, two boys, aged fifteen and twelve, are woken by their father. Their mother, his estranged wife Diana, had been involved in a crash. She had been taken to hospital. The youngest boy waited for Pa to say she would be alright. In his head, the boy is pleading with Pa, God or both, no, no, no. The hospital had tried, but Mummy didn’t make it.

The boy lay in his bed, until a piper played at 9.00 am. He got dressed, and then the family took the two-minute drive to church. He can’t remember anything of the service. He doesn’t record whether his father??prayed with him, nor whether the Minister at Craithie Kirk offered to meet with them. His grandmother had forty royal chaplains to call on. Apparently, none of these chaplains visited the grieving boys, to pray and counsel them. If they did offer, it wasn’t taken up.

The boys stayed in Balmoral with no one saying anything. They returned to London, met weeping crowds and then joined a hideous procession walking behind their mother’s coffin. It wasn’t until Diana was interred at Althorp that Harry felt able to cry: away from press photographers. But even then, the boy felt guilty that he had violated the family ethos.

Soon afterwards he returned to his prep-school. Harry’s only mention of faith, was to recall a teacher who prowled the corridors at night and clouted children who were out of bed with the hardback edition of the?New English Bible. Harry doesn’t mention the school’s Chaplain.

Then it was to Eton, where his elder brother didn’t want anything to do with him. At current rates, it costs ￡65,000 a year to send a teenager to Eton and its website boasts of its?focus on pastoral excellence.??Harry didn’t seem to get much pastoral care. Once again, the Chaplain isn’t mentioned and Harry ended up smoking, all sorts of things, with who he called the other “abandoned children”.

Britain’s tabloids got their teeth into him, just as they had his mother. Everywhere he went, so-called?paparazzi photographers would lie in wait to “pap” him. Even when they weren’t present news of his indiscretions would be photographed. On one occasion, he dressed as a Nazi for a fancy-dress party. This, rightly, caused a storm when pictures appeared in the press. But then we read something quite remarkable: Harry went to meet the Chief Rabbi, who talked to him with firmness but also with great humanity. Throughout the whole book, this is the only time Harry mentions a discussion with a clergyman.?

Eventually he decided to join the army. Part of his reasoning was that it would take him out of the much-hated eye of the press. He had doubts about whether he would be suitable, due to his troubled past. Not a bit of it:??What’s that you say, young man? Parents divorced? Mum’s dead? Unresolved grief or psychological trauma? Step this way!?

Harry often visited Africa and marvelled at the “magic” of being alone in the bush with just his friends. He also loved being in the army, there he was just another junior officer doing his job. He thrived when away from the public gaze. Until then he hadn’t believed in anything, least of all himself. He admits that, most of all, he needed a guide, a guru, a partner. He mentions am army chaplain just once: his squadron were on their way home after a gruelling tour of duty in Afghanistan. They were told a Padre was available, but none of them, including Harry, took up the offer.

Finally, after several false starts, often inhibited by press intrusion, he met the love of his life, Meghan. He describes the behaviour of the press after she was identified. It reminded me of a conversation I had with the manager of the Kindergarten where his mother had worked when the news of her relationship with his father broke: it was truly awful but this time, as well as the intrusive photographers, the British press put its inherent racism on display for all to see. Can anyone blame Harry for not wanting his wife and children to suffer the same fate as his mother and her children?

This is a very moving book. It covers a lot of ground: a troubled childhood, family disagreements, the British press, and finally, a love story. Many people will find something of themselves in it. It will be read, not as history, but as a story about dysfunctional family relationships.?

When my parents had their problems and it was splashed in the tabloids, as a twelve- year old, I was close to coming off the rails. Were it not for the love and prayers of my local Plymouth Brethren gospel hall and others, my story could have been so different. The Brethren may have had some old-fashioned ideas, but they showed a love that the established church and the most exclusive school in the world, couldn’t offer to Harry and his brother.??In my council house, I was far more privileged than those boys at Balmoral.

Let’s hope and pray that Harry and his wife and children, and for that matter his brother and his family, find the peace and love which they need.?