Princes William and Harry remain deeply affected by their mother’s death 20 years ago on August 31, 1997.
William was 15 years old and Harry just 12 when their mother Diana died in a Paris car crash.
The Duke and Prince appear to have dealt very differently with the emotional fallout following their bereavement, with William seemingly coping better with his feelings of “anger” while younger sibling Harry admits to receiving professional help.
The Royal brothers chose the 20th anniversary year of Diana’s death to begin talking candidly about how they are still grieving.
The backdrop to the year has been William, Kate and Harry’s mental health campaign, Heads Together, which has encouraged people to speak about their problems or be a sympathetic ear for others.
And it appears they have followed their own advice and talked openly about losing a parent and the psychological issues that can follow.
William said at the time he felt “very angry” and found it very difficult to talk about his mother’s death.
His job may have helped him deal with his emotions as for much of his working life he has been called to the aftermath of traumatic incidents as a pilot with an RAF search and rescue squadron or until recently the East Anglian Air Ambulance.
Crews are encouraged to debrief and talk about their experiences and feelings as a way of coping with the things they have seen.
In a GQ magazine interview, the Duke said the closest he got to mental health issues was the “trauma I suffered when I lost my mother”.
He went on to say: “I still haven’t necessarily dealt with that grief as well as I could have done over the years”, but had talked to family, friends and those around him he could trust.
“On grief, I find talking about my mother and keeping her memory alive very important,” he went on. “I find it therapeutic to talk about her, and to talk about how I feel.”
William has spoken about hiding behind his hair as he walked behind Diana’s coffin past sobbing mourners with his younger brother, his father the Prince of Wales, grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh and his uncle Earl Spencer.
In a BBC interview William described the procession as the “hardest thing” and a “very long, lonely walk,” and added there was a balance “between me being Prince William and having to do my bit, versus the private William who just wanted to go into a room and cry, who’d lost his mother”.
The now-balding Duke said laughing: “But I just remember hiding behind my fringe basically, at a time when I had a lot of hair, and my head’s down a lot - so I’m hiding behind my fringe.
“It was kind of like a tiny bit of safety blanket if you like. I know it sounds ridiculous, but at the time I felt if I looked at the floor and my hair came down over my face, no one could see me.
“Sounds ridiculous now, but at the time it was important to me to get through the day.”
In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Harry voiced his disapproval at having to join the cortege.
“I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances,” he said. “I don’t think it would happen today.”
Diana’s brother Charles, Earl Spencer, has said he raised objections with royal officials before being told his nephews wanted to do it.
He described the experience as the “most horrifying half hour of my life” but said he believed it was a “million times worse” for Diana’s sons.
Harry revealed the true extent of his problems in an interview with the Telegraph, describing how he sought counselling after two years of “total chaos” having spent nearly 20 years “not thinking” about the death of his mother.
The Prince said he stuck his “head in the sand” and refused to think about his mother because that would not bring her back.
“And then [I] started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with,” he said.
He added he sought help after his older brother said he needed to deal with his feelings.
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