Prince William (43 page)

The launch was at the Troubadour, a bohemian café and basement club in Earl's Court Road, where Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon all played in the 1960s. Reading his speech nervously from cards, William said he was ‘delighted' to be involved and that it was one of the ‘easiest decisions' he had ever made. ‘Having lost someone so close in similar circumstances, Harry and I understand how important it is to keep their memory alive. There's no finer way than that Alex and Claire have chosen. This is the first charity of which we have both become patron and it couldn't have been a better one, as Henry was such a very close friend of ours and because we believe so strongly in the need to alleviate poverty and assist development in African countries.'

Harry, also reading falteringly from cards, said, ‘As some of you know, Henry was one of my greatest friends and his death was truly shocking. Henry would be so proud of his family for what they are doing in his name. Everything that's going on in Uganda and the way they are carrying his memory on is remarkable.'

Their confidence has developed in leaps and bounds since then, and at the charity's annual Christmas carol service in London last December, which is always a sell-out, Harry delivered a touching and very funny tribute to Henry. And having Pippa Middleton, Kate's younger sister, hand round the mince pies and collection box afterwards did no harm at all to the funds.

Harry finished his helicopter training and was awarded his
wings at the Army Air Corps Base in Middle Wallop in May 2010, and despite his earlier worries about insufficient brain power, was accepted to fly Apaches. The man in charge of training him was deeply sceptical at the outset and, according to someone who knows him, ‘quite cross that he had been landed with Harry on his watch. He thought there was no way he was going to fly an Apache. He loves Harry now. He's deeply impressed by him. There's no side to Harry; he doesn't expect any special treatment and the guys all love him. He really struggled with the academic stuff but put his head down and forced his way through it and now he's one of the best Apache pilots of the lot.'

As someone who knows the Princes very well says, ‘Harry can't pass an exam in his life but my God he can fly a helicopter. He flies an Apache better than anybody else on his course. You don't get to be an Apache pilot unless you're in the top ten per cent and if you're heading the course, you're a really exceptional flyer. He's a romantic. He'll be the sort of soldier who'll start to read poetry when he's thirty-five, that sort of guy. He's a fantastic wit, he's hysterical.

‘William's a steady bloke, unemotional and unflappable. That's why he's doing search and rescue; he doesn't get massively excited about stuff. His way of approaching life is considered. Harry's an adventurer, you just have to look at the helicopters they fly, they sum them up. William's flying a huge mountain of a helicopter that would go through storms and be battered left and right and just keep going. Whereas, Harry is, turn off the computer and fly the thing at 150 knots over the treetops. It's an Apache, that's what it's all about and it's completely instinctive.'

William became patron of another charity close to his heart in 2009. The Child Bereavement Charity (CBC) of which Julia Samuel, one of his mother's good friends, was founder patron and trustee. She used to live very near Ludgrove and has four children, two of whom are exactly the same age as William and Harry. Diana would often take both boys to stay with them on exeats from school, where they would muck in with the rest of the family, or they'd do fun things in London, all go to the movies together or to a
concert at Wembley. When she launched the charity in 1994 (strictly speaking, as co-patron), Diana had taken a step back from public life but she came as a friend. She helped Julia with her speech, took her off to find a suit to wear, sent her flowers, and although she was never a patron, she remained interested and supportive. There was a year during which Julia heard nothing from Diana (cut off, like so many of her friends), which she never really understood, but the friendship resumed as suddenly as it had ceased.

CBC's work is twofold: providing support and education. They support families which have lost a child, and children who have been bereaved either by the death of a parent or a sibling. And they train professionals – doctors, teachers, midwives, health visitors, coroners, police – anyone who comes into contact with families in which a child has died or been bereaved. As Julia explains (which is interesting in terms of William and Harry's experience), ‘The belief is that the way in which you are supported following the death has a big impact on your ability to manage it and to prevent it derailing you and your whole family.' A lot of research has been done, she says, which shows that loss, or a death that has never been dealt with, is a big contributor to depression, psychosis and many other mental health problems.

After Diana's death, Julia, who is a psychotherapist and bereavement counsellor herself, attempted to see William and Harry – as several of Diana's old friends did – but all invitations were politely and graciously rebuffed by Helen Asprey, and so she gave up.

Ten years later she had a phone call. They were planning their mother's memorial service and asked whether Julia would write a piece about Diana for the programme. After the service she wrote asking whether William would consider becoming patron of CBC and was told he was too busy with his military life, but when she wrote again a year later the answer was yes.

His patronage was announced at the launch of the charity's Mother's Day Campaign in March 2009, and for the first time since Diana's death, William spoke publicly about her.

‘My mother, Diana, was present at your launch fifteen years ago
and, today, I am incredibly proud to be able to continue her support of such an extraordinary charity by becoming your Royal Patron. What my mother recognised then – and what I understand now – is that losing a close family member is one of the hardest experiences that anyone can ever endure. Never being able to say the word “Mummy” again in your life sounds like a small thing. However, for many, including me, it is now really just a word – hollow and evoking only memories. I can therefore wholeheartedly relate to the Mother's Day Campaign as I too have felt – and still feel – the emptiness on such a day as Mother's Day.'

His decision to talk about his mother in such a personal way guaranteed fantastic media coverage, which achieved exactly what the charity is about: raising awareness so people know where to go for help, and with his involvement there have been many more hits on the website and many more families have come to seek support.

He can also raise money in a way that few people can. He has said he will do one event a year for CBC, which is no more nor less than he does for all his other charities, but that one event can make a huge amount of money. In November 2011 (on the eve of his engagement), he hosted a dinner at Windsor Castle for the charity's high hitters. William made a short speech in which he thanked his grandmother for allowing them to be at Windsor Castle – and for trusting him with the keys for a night. Once again, he clearly spoke from his own experience. ‘Bereavement is rightly seen as a time of intense private grief. But this is often misinterpreted as meaning a time of solitude, a time to let the bereaved sort themselves out on their own. I know that this is very far from the reality of what's needed. The wonderful staff of the Child Bereavement Charity also understands this instinctively. A little non-intrusive help and understanding can make all the difference to people, young and old, going through what is one of the most traumatic times in life.'

That night they raised £280,000 in donations; one person gave £100,000. No previous dinner has ever come close.

DOSSING DOWN

On the morning of 16 December 2009, the residents at Centrepoint's hostel in Soho's Greek Street came down to breakfast to find Prince William in the kitchen, apron on, cooking their breakfast alongside the chef. While they were comfortably and safely asleep in their beds upstairs, he had been sleeping under a cardboard box close to the Embankment in sub-zero temperatures.

The idea came to him in very different surroundings. During a dinner for Centrepoint he'd hosted for donors and celebrities at St James's Palace nine months earlier, one of them mentioned that he had taken part in a Sleep Out in Leadenhall Market. Fifty donors had spent the night in sleeping bags to raise money. It was a fun event, attracted publicity and was a good fundraiser. ‘You wouldn't dare do that, would you?' said Seyi Obakin, Chief Executive of Centrepoint. ‘Of course I would,' said William. ‘Then I'm going to take you up on it,' said Seyi.

Later in the year William said, ‘If I'm going to do Sleep Out, I don't want to do a fun Sleep Out event, I want to do it properly and get a feel for what a young person really experiences when they have to sleep rough.' ‘It quickly became clear,' says Seyi, ‘that our fundraising, comfortable-as-it-can-be sort of Sleep Out wouldn't work. So on the night of 15 December – I remember it very well because I decided to do it with him, having instigated this thing – four of us set off at about midnight: myself, Prince William, Jamie and one police protection officer. It was not what I had intended when I asked him to do it – and if the truth be told, if I'd thought he'd say yes in which case I'd have to do it as well, I wouldn't
have suggested it! We did what anyone who had to sleep out would have to do – we looked around, found a little place where there might be a bit of shelter, in our case a set of wheelie bins, put down our cardboard, covered ourselves as best we could, and hunkered down for the night – pretending to sleep. I said it was a pity we didn't have a camera to take a photo of this, but Jamie had a mobile phone so we used that to take a grainy picture.

‘We each had a sleeping bag but it was an unbelievably cold night out there; the temperature dropped to minus 4 degrees, but it felt colder; it was bone-chillingly cold. At about 3 a.m., a road-sweeper came by which got us all to pop our heads out of our sleeping bags and get our legs out of the way pretty quickly. We got up at about 5.45, and walked from Blackfriars to Greek Street, where we took turns to have a shower. It's about a 45-minute walk and none of the people we passed blinked. You wouldn't expect Prince William to be walking down the road at that time in the morning in a beany hat, tattered jeans, looking dishevelled like a rough sleeper. A lot of people have said to me, “I don't believe you, there must have been security next door.” Actually, the anonymity was security itself. No one expected him to be there.

‘The 16th was our exact 40th anniversary day and we'd said we'd like him to cut a cake. So he said, “If I'm going to cut a cake, why not make breakfast?” The young people just sat down as they would normally and there was Prince William making and serving them their food. Of course they wouldn't leave then, so they had their breakfast and stayed and he finished cooking and went and sat along with them and chatted.'Among those he chatted to that morning was a nineteen-year-old called Tres B. He had fled the war in Congo and landed up at Centrepoint. William asked him what he was doing. Tres B said he was learning to play the guitar. After he'd expressed an interest in music, Centrepoint had bought him a guitar, thinking it might also help improve his English. ‘William said, “Play something for me,”' recalls Seyi. ‘“Oh no, I can't.” “Go on.” So Tres B went and brought the guitar from his room and played and it was really good.

‘William has a remarkable knack that is magic. He somehow remembers strands of conversation that he has with different young people, so that if he meets Tres B tomorrow, he'll ask him about his guitar. Can you imagine what that does for Tres B? I've never briefed him to remind him. And he did meet Tres B again and remembered.'

At the beginning of 2010, William became patron of 100 Women in Hedgefunds' Philanthropic Initiatives. For the next three years they committed to raising money for three of his charities: Centrepoint, Child Bereavement Charity and SkillForce – and their Gala dinner that first year raised nearly £500,000 for Centrepoint.

Amongst the speakers, who included William, was a young woman called Shozna. At the age of nineteen, she had had a severe stroke, and for various reasons became homeless and came to live at Centrepoint. Although she was not very confident, her mentor felt that, if she could do it, speaking at the Gala dinner could be the making of her. Seyi takes up the story. ‘We said, “Don't worry about performing, you just have to say who you are, how you came to be at Centrepoint and what work your mentor has done for you. Finish.” She said she would do it but as the day approached, Shozna said, “Oh God.” I said, “If you are uncomfortable, please don't do it.” “But I said I would.” “Then how can we make it easier?” We agreed she would write what she wanted to say on cards that I would hold in front of her so she could read from the card. When it was Shozna's turn to speak, I started holding the cards, then after a short while she didn't need them.

‘On his way out, Prince William said, “I can't go without having a word with Shozna.” So he came along and said, “What a fantastic speech you gave. Well done. Can I give you a hug before I go?” “Oh yes!” And he did. She is very small and he bent down and gave her a hug and when they separated she was full of tears. “I got a hug from a Prince!” She is thriving. Her mentor was right. It was like it flicked a switch for her. I'm not saying it was the
hug, but the whole experience culminating in his behaviour that night. It was entirely his initiative to seek her out. That's what he does; that's why he's so good for us.'

HELPING HEROES

Almost without exception, every charity that secures a Royal patron enjoys huge benefit, but William and Harry have found a new way of spreading their stardust. The first to experience it was Help for Heroes, the phenomenally successful charity started by cartoonist and former Royal Green Jacket Bryn Parry and his wife Emma. With a son in the Army, they knew what it was like for families to have their loved ones on the front line and they had seen friends of his come home wounded with their lives changed forever. But it was a visit to a critical ward at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham that inspired them to found a charity to help those soldiers. ‘That was shocking and moving and the defining moment,' says Bryn. ‘It changed everything.'