The long walk OF GRIEF

A public loss, a private trauma - how Diana's death shaped Harry

- STEPHEN LENG

The death of a mother has a profound effect on anyone. But for 12-year-old Prince Harry, the tragic loss of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash in August 1997 meant he had to mourn publicly.

'They tried, darling boy. I'm afraid she didn't make it,' his father, now King Charles, told him early that August 1997 morning. 'Pa didn't hug me. He wasn't great at showing emotions under normal circumstances,' Harry later wrote in Spare. 'But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, “It’s going to be OK.” But after that, nothing was OK for a long time.'

Most will never forget the heartbreaking images of him and a 15-year-old Prince William walking behind their mother’s coffin through London. That he was doing it alongside his father, then Prince Charles, grandfather Prince Philip and uncle Earl Spencer was little comfort, seeing as the eyes of thousands of public mourners lining the route to Westminster Abbey were on him – not to mention the 2.3 billion viewers watching on television.