Prince Harry
Once upon a time there were two brothers. One was heir to the throne, the other a lost boy. Today, that boy has come of age with fans the world over. Writer Penny Junor tells Rosanna Greenstreet how Prince Harry grew up
In recent weeks the media spotlight has been firmly fixed on Prince Harry. Not only has he turned 30, learned he is to be an uncle for a second time and taken centre stage at the inaugural Invictus Games but, he has also become the subject of a new book – Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son, by the Surrey-born writer and broadcaster, Penny Junor.
Penny is a seasoned biographer and her best-sellers, which include books about Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Prince William always receive a great deal of attention, not least because Penny has been writing about the royal family for more than 30 years and always seems to know what she is talking about. Before our interview, I am told by her publicist that the book has the “nod from the Palace”. Does this mean that it is an authorised biography?
“It’s not ‘authorised’,” explains Penny. “‘Authorised’ is a word that the royals run a mile from! But I did have the ‘nod’ from the Palace and without it you can’t speak to anybody these days. When I first started doing this sort of royal writing, people were nervous but they would talk. Now, people are terrified of the media.”
Penny is the daughter of the late John Junor, editor of The Sunday Express, which was owned by Lord Beaverbrook, and she was raised in a cottage on Cherkley, Beaverbrook’s estate in Mickleham, between Leatherhead and Dorking.
“I am a Surrey person,” she says, “I was born in Leatherhead and I lived at Cherkley until the age of nine when we moved to Charlwood. I was there till I married at 20, and then we lived in South Holmwood until 20 years ago.”
Penny now lives in Wiltshire, but she is coming back to the area this month for the Guildford Book Festival, where she will discuss Harry’s biography, a project she has had in mind for some time.
“Over the years, publishers asked me to write about the boys and I always thought they were too young. Three years ago I was asked to write about William. He was coming up to 30, so I thought, ‘Ok, it’s fair enough now.’ In the course of doing William I kept hearing good stuff about Harry. Their private secretary and I would sit down and we would talk and he would say ‘Harry this’ and ‘Harry that’ and I would have to say, ‘Excuse me, I am actually writing about William’. And he kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I think of them as a pair’. He explained that they complement each other so wonderfully and are so close that they tend to operate as a unit, and his hunch was that they always would. I told him I would come back and do Harry.”
Although Penny did not interview Harry for her book, she has met him.“I tried very hard to persuade him to talk to me and he was utterly charming and adamant that he wouldn’t,” she smiles, adding, “He hates the press. He has been hounded by them and although I am not strictly speaking ‘press’, I am still in the enemy camp. He was nervous, but he did let me talk to his household and to the people who run his charities.”
Like most of Penny’s biographies, the new book was serialised ahead of publication. The Daily Mail ran one particularly shocking headline: ‘Diana phoned Camilla in the middle of the night and said: I sent someone to kill you.’ Does Penny worry that the Prince might be upset by her revelations?
“I hope not,” she says, “Inevitably I have to talk about his childhood in order to explain why he is the man he is, and that’s not easy stuff to hear. My embarrassment has been that the newspaper has gone big on the old Diana stuff, and that’s not really what the book is about.”
Nor does it focus too much on the royal redhead’s penchant for partying.
“The book is called Brother, Soldier, Son, it’s not Lover, Boyfriend, Drunkard. So it is on the more substantial side of Harry,” Penny explains. “One of the things I would say is how badly represented he’s been in the media. I think the popular image of him of the irresponsible, heavy drinking, womanising guy is quite wide of the mark. He does party, he is a bit wild when he does – there are no half measures – but there is so much more to him.”
Such as?
“He is magic with children, pure magic. He says it’s because he’s a big kid himself. I have seen it. At the last WellChild Awards he met privately with very ill children, like the boy who had had 53 operations on his brain, and Harry was amazing with them. I’ve also been to Lesotho to see the wonderful work of his children’s charity Sentebale, which he cares passionately about.”
I wonder if Penny thinks that Harry would like to have his own children: “Yes I am sure he’d love to” she says,”but it is going to be difficult for him to find the right sort of woman to marry – two women have been scared off by being in the public eye. I don’t pretend to know why those relationships ended. What I do know is that both Chelsey and Cressida hated the media pressure.”
What is the most interesting thing that Penny has discovered about Harry?
“Harry spent most of his life being second best, the ‘spare’, the one that wasn’t so good looking, that was less important, less clever and struggling with exams. He was feeling pretty ropey about himself and then he went into the army. Lord Dannatt, who was head of the army, suggested he try the Army Air Corps. For the first time in his life, Harry discovered something that he could do really well and I think that has absolutely changed him. His commanding officer and the people who taught him to fly say he is a brilliant Apache co-pilot gunner and a fantastic leader. He’s gone from this guy who didn’t feel very good about himself to someone who has a whole heap more confidence.”
And what of Harry’s future? Now 30, he inherits a legacy from his mother, thought to be in the region of £10 million.
“He is now going to be jolly wealthy, so he could support himself,” says Penny. “He could sail off into the sunset, and he would be perfectly within his rights to do that. My guess is that he probably will not disappear – although I think in times gone by, he thought quite seriously about going to Africa because he is anonymous there. This is a guy who really does not like being abnormal. I am sure he loves being rich – don’t get me wrong – but he doesn’t want to be the centre of attention. William was much the same but he has the top job coming, so he has to put up with it. Harry is a very different character.”
And what about Penny’s next biography? Which royal character will she put under the microscope? The Duchess of Cambridge would seem a natural choice or even the royal mother-in-law, Carole Middleton.
“I don’t think it would be fair to Carole,” Penny exclaims, “Poor woman. She’s done a great job at bringing up her children and she’s kept her mouth wonderfully zipped and behaved impeccably despite all sorts of provocation from the ghastly tabloids, so I wouldn’t do her. As for Kate, she’s too new, so not yet.”
Come on Penny, we can’t wait, the British people are hanging on your every word!
Penny Junor will be speaking about her new book, Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son at Guildford Book Festival on Oct 16; guildfordbookfestival.co.uk
