It was not just to Tiggy that Charles turned to for guidance. Camilla Parker Bowles also had first-hand experience in such matters: her son Tom had been caught in possession of cannabis while reading English at Oxford and was trapped into offering cocaine to an undercover reporter in 1999 while working as a publicist at the Cannes Film Festival. Camilla was in an excellent position to offer Charles sound advice, according to Mark Bolland, who helped coordinate Harry's trip to Featherstone Lodge. 'Of course Camilla recognised the need for the boys to have a strong father figure in their life especially in the years after Diana's death and she encouraged him to spend as much time on his own with them as he could. She was aware of the difficulties of raising teenagers and she was a big support for Charles during this period.' By now Camilla had met William and Harry, which despite everyone's nerves, had gone smoothly. It was Friday 12 June 1998 and just nine days before his sixteenth birthday when William first met his father's mistress. He had returned to St James's Palace after his final GCSE exam and was on his way to the cinema to meet some friends. Camilla, who was by now a permanent fixture at the prince's London residence, was also at the palace, and Charles, aware that a meeting had to happen at some point, asked William if he wanted to meet Camilla. It had not yet been a year since Diana's death, and while he was still deeply protective of his mother's memory, curiosity got the better of him. Camilla was so nervous that she needed a stiff vodka and tonic afterwards, according to the Daily Mail Daily Mail's royal correspondent Richard Kay, but the thirty-minute meeting was so successful that William suggested that he and Camilla should meet again by themselves for afternoon tea.

While his mother had blamed Camilla for the breakdown of her marriage, William got along well with his father's mistress. They kept to small talk but William discovered he had rather a lot in common with Camilla. She was down-to-earth, and her sense of humour appeared to have rubbed off on his father, who seemed happier than he had been in years. William and Camilla both loved the countryside and shared a pa.s.sion for riding and fox-hunting which they agreed should not be banned. William had also become friendly with Camilla's children, who were several years older than him and Harry. Tom was a former Etonian and Oxford graduate while Laura had finished school and taken a gap year. William had been fascinated by her tales of travelling around South America when they were all at Birkhall that Easter. They had not always got along well, and William and Laura used to have terrible fights over who was to blame for their broken homes. According to one family friend of the Parker Bowleses, when Charles telephoned Camilla at the family home in Wiltshire, Laura would pick up an extension and shout down the receiver, 'Why don't you stop calling Mummy and leave our family alone.' She couldn't care less that it was the Prince of Wales; she blamed him for breaking up her parents' marriage and was not afraid to tell William so. 'William would blame Camilla for all the hurt she had caused his mother, which would send Laura into a rage,' revealed a family friend. 'Laura was not having any of it. She would take a hard line and fire back at William, "Your father has ruined my life."' According to school-friends, Laura like her brother Tom was teased mercilessly when intimate conversations between Charles and Camilla ended up in the British press. But if anyone could relate to this it was William. He had suffered a similar humiliation, and when they stopped blaming one another's parents and let go of their painful pasts, Laura and William got along well.

A few weeks later it was Harry's turn to meet Camilla, this time at Highgrove, with his father and brother on hand to break the ice. Camilla would later say that she thought Harry had looked at her 'suspiciously', which was probably true. Tiggy Legge-Bourke could not bear Camilla, and picked up where Diana had left off in the war with Charles's mistress. Camilla, who reportedly infuriated Tiggy by referring to her as 'hired help', resented the time she spent with Charles and the boys. It was Tiggy who took the boys rock climbing; Tiggy who accompanied them to Klosters, where she was famously photographed kissing Charles after a demanding ski run; and Tiggy who was the only other person the Prince of Wales allowed to smoke in his company. Eventually it would be Camilla who emerged victorious, when the boys' former nanny was snubbed from Charles's fiftieth birthday party, which William and Harry helped organise. The following summer Camilla and her children were invited on their first 'family holiday' with the Waleses to Greece, where they spent a week aboard the Alexander Alexander. It had been William's idea and was a major breakthrough. Finally the path had been paved for Charles to be with the woman he loved, but it would be many years before he would make her his wife.

Back at Eton, Harry was working hard to live up to his big brother's reputation: he was still in William's shadow even though he had left the school. Unlike William he had not made it into Pop, the school's prestigious society for sixth formers. William had been one of the society's most popular members, and while he had had the authority to hand out punishments to fellow pupils he rarely did. One of his jobs involved keeping watch on Windsor Bridge for any boys leaving pubs. Drinking was forbidden unless you were in the top year, when you were allowed to drink at Eton's 'tap bar', but more often than not William turned a blind eye and told the boarders to hurry on home and avoid the housemaster. Although he didn't smoke he rarely punished boys he caught illicitly smoking on the sports pitches. 'William was pretty cool and he wouldn't hand out detentions and punishments even though he could,' a friend recalled. 'He was very easy-going and very humble; he didn't go around using his t.i.tle to get him anywhere, if anything he downplayed it. If people made a deal about who he was he would colour up and move the conversation away from him. He just wanted to be William and like everyone else.'

Harry was the same, and the one place he could be himself was in the Combined Cadet Force, the CCF. Both he and William signed up for the army section. The Duke of Wellington once said, 'The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', and the school has produced generations of first-cla.s.s cadets. Unlike William, Harry missed out on the prestigious sword of honour, but he was promoted to lance corporal in October 2002 and led a detachment of forty-eight cadets in Eton's respected Tattoo. Instead of spending weekends alone at Club H getting up to no good, Harry now preferred to be leading his platoon on training exercises. According to one of the cadets under Harry Wales's charge, the prince took the training more seriously than most: Harry knew what he was talking about and he didn't take any rubbish. He was very good about motivating us and he cared about his men and wanted us to do well in drill test. He told us to sleep with our guns in our sleeping bags so we were always ready for action. He was known for jumping out of bushes when we were on night watches to keep us on our toes. I remember being on watch and hearing a rustle in the bushes. We all thought it was Harry mucking around, but when ten squaddies jumped out and wrestled us to the ground, we got the shock of our lives. From the other bush we could just hear snorting, which was Harry having a laugh.

Harry also let off steam playing the Eton wall game, a sport exclusive to Eton that is both lawless and dangerous and involves two scrums of ten and a leather ball. A goal has not been recorded since before the First World War, but Harry gave it his best shot. 'You had to be prepared for a beating especially when you were playing against Harry,' one of his teammates told me. 'He was totally fearless and very aggressive when he played. It earned him a lot of respect at Eton because he was able to show he could look after himself. He turned up at Eton a slightly scrawny boy of about five feet and he left having shot up to about six feet with a lot more muscle.' Harry did not escape unscathed: he broke his nose playing rugby when he was sixteen and spent several weeks on crutches a year later after damaging his ankle.

While his concerned teachers had warned that Harry was on his way to failing academically, he managed to pa.s.s his GCSEs with respectable grades but struggled with his A levels. After failing his mocks, he eventually dropped a subject, but Harry didn't care. He had ruled out going to university and set his heart on attending Sandhurst, the prestigious Royal Military Academy, but he still needed two A-level pa.s.ses to get in.

Chapter 7.

A gap-year prince but a reluctant king.

I loved my gap year and wish I could have another one.Prince William Charles sighed in exasperation and noted how determined and extremely stubborn his elder son could be. Not for the first time the two were at loggerheads, and the topic dividing father and son as they stood in the drawing room of St James's Palace was that of William's gap year. It was the summer of the Millennium, and William could not contain his excitement about the twelve months of freedom ahead of him. He and Harry had just had the best summer of their lives, part of which they had spent in Rock, a pretty seaside town in Cornwall. The princes and a group of friends had spent an idyllic fortnight swimming and surfing off the Cornish coast, meeting girls and sampling the beer on tap at the Oystercatcher pub. Now the issue of what William planned to do for the next year could be postponed no longer.

The eighteen-year-old prince had spoken to his friends Luke and Mark Tomlinson about travelling to Argentina to play polo for a season. By now he was an accomplished player like his father, and he wanted to improve his game. From there he intended to join a group of schoolfriends who were backpacking in South America. He had gone to his father to talk about his master plan, and to his anger Charles had vetoed the suggestion. 'It's not fair,' William complained. 'Everyone else is allowed to go backpacking, why can't I?' He knew full well that he was not like everyone else but the disappointment still weighed heavily on him. He had told his father he had no plans to do work experience in London. 'I didn't want to sit around and get a job back in London,' William later admitted. 'I wanted to get out and see a bit of the world.' On that issue Charles was in full agreement, but the trip had to be vocational, educational and safe. The very idea of the second-in-line to the throne backpacking around a foreign continent was unthinkable. As was often the case in such situations Charles, who has always hated any sort of confrontation with either of his sons, decided to seek advice, and he a.s.sured William that a solution would be found.

Charles empathised with his son's frustration. He was desperate for William to have more fun than he had had at that age. When Charles left Gordonstoun, he went straight to Cambridge and then into the armed forces. For him a gap year had been totally out of the question, and Charles had hated the limitations of a life dictated solely by duty. 'You can't understand what it is like to have your whole life mapped out for you,' he had said. 'It's so awful to be programmed.' He was far more relaxed with William than his own parents were with him. He had surprised William when he presented him with a motorbike on his eight eenth birthday that June. 'My father is concerned about the fact that I'm into motorbikes but he doesn't want to keep me all wrapped up in cotton wool,' said William. 'You might as well live if you're going to live. It's just something I'm pa.s.sionate about.' The fact that William can ride around London without being recognised is still one of his greatest thrills. But although Charles was lenient in some areas, he was adamant that his son's gap year had to be carefully organised. He enlisted a group of dignitaries to help him plan a suitable year for his son. The group comprised the Bishop of London the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, who has been a part of Charles's advisory panel since their days at Cambridge, former cabinet minister and governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten, William's housemaster at Eton Dr Andrew Gailey and Dr Eric Anderson, who had been Charles's tutor at Gordonstoun and was provost at Eton.

It was agreed that William should get his wish of going to South America, but the trip would have to entail voluntary work, not polo. He would also visit Rodrigues, a paradise island in the Indian Ocean, and revisit Kenya, where he had been three years earlier for a three-and-a-half-month safari. In addition he would do some work experience in the UK, including on a farm near Highgrove. But before all that, it was decided that William would travel to the Belize jungle to join the Welsh Guards on exercise. As the future head of the armed services, he would be expected to have had a career in the military, and a week of training in the jungles of Central America would be an excellent, albeit harsh, introduction.

William took part in an operation code-named Native Trail, which was the toughest expedition of his life to date and made the CCF look easy. Sandwiched between Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, Belize is hot, humid and dangerous. Temperatures in the jungle rarely dip below thirty degrees Celsius and it is almost permanently wet. William had little time to acclimatise before he was driven deep into the jungle by Winston Harris, a Belizean who had been made an MBE for his work training the SAS in jungle tactics. It was like nothing William had ever experienced before. The jungle was lush, wet and full of snakes, crocodiles and infection-transmitting insects.

His uncle Prince Edward had spent a week there with 40 Commando in 1985 and had found it a daunting experience. William was no different. He struggled with the heat and there was the constant danger of malaria. The young prince's first survival skills were learning how to treat a snake bite and kill a chicken for food. William didn't flinch when he was told to wring the bird's neck his grandmother had shown him exactly how to do it although it was the first time he had had to cut a bird's feet off using a machete. Corporal Claud Martinez of the Belizean Defence Force, who took part in the exercises with William, said, 'The prince would make a good soldier. He has the physical structure and mental strength. He was surrounded by men firing machine guns and he still looked at ease. I never saw a moment of panic on his face.' It was training that would serve William in good stead and made him realise just how much he loved army life. The only reminder of home was when Charles emailed William his A-level results. He had got an A in geography, a B in history of art and a C in biology. William breathed a deep sigh of relief. He had the grades he needed to enrol at St Andrews University in Scotland, where he had applied to study the history of art.

Now he could really enjoy his gap year, and after the discomfort of the mosquito-infested rainforest of Belize he was delighted to be heading to Rodrigues, a stunning island off the coast of Mauritius. William flew to the island on a chartered aircraft with Mark Dyer, a former member of the Welsh Guards and former equerry to the Prince of Wales who had become a ubiquitous presence on the prince's gap year, as he would on Harry's. William had enjoyed geography at school, and the trip, which was partly organised by the Royal Geographical Society, had been billed as an opportunity to learn how to protect the area's endangered coral reefs. In truth it was more of a holiday, and William travelled around the nine-mile-long island on a rusty Honda 125cc motorbike meeting the locals and teaching them how to play rugby as well as fish more safely. William, in shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops, loved the anonymity of the trip and checked in as 'Brian Woods' at Le Domaine de Decide, a small and basic resort where he stayed for a month. He had no need to worry about being recognised; there were no photographers on the island. William was left in peace to enjoy the simplicity of living in a spartan hut with a corrugated-iron roof and two single beds for twenty-six pounds a night. Years later he would return to the paradise island with a young lady called Kate Middleton.

On his return from Rodrigues, William came back to reality with a thud. It was the end of September, and before he left for Chile he had to give his first-ever solo press conference. As part of the deal with the media, who had promised to leave William alone during his gap year, the prince had agreed to speak to a cross section of print and broadcasting press from around the world to update them on his trip. It was not something the eighteen-year-old prince was looking forward to, but fortunately his debut press conference, on a warm afternoon on 29 September 2000 in the gardens of Highgrove, went smoothly. While Charles appeared in a suit, William chose to dress down in jeans, his favourite Burberry sweater and North Face trainers. He was understandably nervous and uncomfortable.

William had become increasingly wary of the press following his mother's death and rarely gave interviews. His last official photocall had been when he agreed to give royal photographer Ian Jones unprecedented access during his final months at Eton. Jones recalled William's interest in his occupation and said, 'William had always had photographers in his life and he was curious about our methods. He learned a lot when we worked together.' William had indeed learned a lot and had become adept at spotting the paparazzi, who often lurked in bushes. He had picked up a few tricks from his grandfather, who was known to stalk the grounds of Sandringham at Christmas in search of prying photographers. When Philip eventually found them he would rap on the steamed-up windows of their cars with his walking stick and enquire, 'Having a good snoop, are we?'

While William reluctantly accepted that being in the limelight would always be an integral part of his life he disliked being the centre of attention and said, 'I feel uncomfortable with it.' He was also, he announced, unhappy that his late mother had not been allowed to rest in peace. Since her death there had been a deluge of books, many penned by Diana's trusted former aides, which had upset the princes. At the time their mother's former private secretary Patrick Jephson's memoirs were the subject of a sensational serialisation in a Sunday newspaper. Even in Rodrigues William had been kept abreast of Jephson's revelations, and when asked about them during the press conference he said, 'Harry and I are both quite upset about it that our mother's trust has been betrayed and that, even now, she is still being exploited.'

He was, however, delighted to be setting off for Patagonia, where he would be taking part in environmental and community projects organised by Raleigh International. He had wanted to go somewhere hot, and while it was not the polo-playing adventure he had dreamed of, those ten weeks in Chile would be one of the most incredible experiences of William's life so far. His fellow volunteers were from all walks of life and a world away from William's sheltered upbringing at the palace. Some were reformed drug addicts while others had served time in prison. Whatever their backgrounds, their tasks were the same, and everyone was expected to get stuck in. There was to be no special treatment for William, and he raised 5,500 in sponsorship. 'I organised a water polo match and got sponsors. I also raised money for a disadvantaged person to come on the expedition with me.'

On 1 October 2000 William boarded a British Airways plane from Gatwick to Santiago. Knowing there would be few luxuries in Patagonia, he happily accepted the offer of an upgrade to first cla.s.s. He had deliberately chosen to fly out separately from his fellow volunteers to avoid the inevitable send-off by the world's media, who had gathered at Heathrow hoping to wave the prince off. It was only when he was safely on the ground in Santiago that William met a handful of the hundred volunteers with whom he would be spending the next ten weeks. While William was sensibly dressed in the navy-blue Raleigh International fleece which was to become his second skin, Mark Dyer stood out like a sore thumb in a Savile Row suit. William was nervous as he chatted with the small group who had been selected to meet him in the VIP room, but having Ali G, his favourite comedian, on the television broke the ice.

William was immediately popular as for safety reasons the uncomfortable and dangerous two-day road trip to Coyhaique, Raleigh International's headquarters, had been abandoned in favour of a flight to Balmaceda in a plane chartered by the Prince of Wales. Sandwiched between his protection officer and Dyer in the emergency exit seats, William fidgeted nervously during the three-hour flight over the Andes. Inside the terminal at Balmaceda, as he waited to collect his bags, which were covered in 'Priority VIP' labels, he pulled his baseball cap over his face. He was worried there would be press waiting for him outside but as he walked through the sliding doors, there was not a photographer in sight. The prince removed his cap and smiled at Dyer. It was his first moment of gap-year freedom.

When the group arrived at Coyhaique they were exhausted, but there was no time to rest; they had to acclimatise at Field Base, a tented camp surrounded by mountains and miles of barren countryside. The only clue that there was a VIP among the group was the four open-top military jeeps parked at the camp's entrance. Up the hill there was a wooden shelter where foodstuffs and equipment were stored and another smaller outhouse where the group would eat. There was also a small kiosk that opened once a day, where William would buy packets of chocolate-chip cookies. They would be sleeping under canvas, and William, who had elected to share his tent with two girls, gallantly ran to bag the best pitch. The main house was not open to the volunteers, although William was allowed to make urgent calls home to England. For everyone else the solitary telephone box outside the main house sufficed. There was an outside wash-house with communal showers, but they would only have the luxury of a hot shower once a month. The prince insisted on showering alone, even though this meant waiting until the end when most of the hot water had run out. On one occasion he left his Cartier watch in the shower cubicle and was inconsolable until it was found. It was not just that the watch was expensive; it had been given to him by his mother who had engraved William's name on it and he was never without it.

Like everyone else William was expected to get involved in the ice-breaking games, although the name-learning exercise, which entailed every volunteer being carried without being dropped, was farcical. 'Wills! Wills! Wills!' the group shouted as they manhandled the future king to the end of the line. Then there were tests of physical endurance. William was told he had to carry his chosen partner from one end of the field to the other. As he watched his new friends struggle to carry each other across the camp, he invited his female companion to stand on his steel-capped boots, hold on tight and allow him to walk them both across the field. The idea caught on, and by the end of the exercise everyone was copying the resourceful royal.

Proving that he could swim ahead of the fortnight of sea kayaking was never going to be a problem. What William hadn't counted on, however, was the group of photographers that suddenly appeared out of nowhere as he made his way to the lake where they were to be a.s.sessed. He had only known his fellow volunteers for a matter of days, but they immediately surrounded him so that not even the longest lens could catch a glimpse. That single action immediately earned the prince's trust. They may not have had much in common, but if these boys and girls could demonstrate such loyalty before the end of the first week, William was more than happy to give everyone a chance. Eventually the photographers gave up and the prince was free to strip off and dive into the lake, where he effortlessly completed the required 500-metre swimming test. William had been looking forward to the kayaking, the first part of the expedition, and had read up on the dramatic Patagonian coastline.

The group would be living in total isolation and camping in the wild. They had come well prepared and carried all the equipment they would need. The first week tested everyone's resolve, and at one point William, like the others, just wanted to come home. The weather had closed in and it rained for days. They tried their hardest to entertain themselves, but their spirits flagged and William spent most of his time in his tent. 'The wind whipped up into a storm. The tents were flapping so violently that we thought they were going to blow away,' he said afterwards. 'Everything was soaked through. I had never seen rain like it. It was so heavy and it just did not stop. It was quite demoralising even though we managed to keep ourselves going by singing and stuff like that. I don't think I have ever been as low as that. Everyone was thinking, why did I choose to come here?'

During those rain-soaked days he lay in his tent reading the bestseller Bravo Two Zero Bravo Two Zero, about an SAS mission in Iraq during the First Gulf War, and listening to his portable CD player. His cousin Zara had recorded him a compilation which kicked off with Manu Chao's 'Bongo Bong', which always made him smile. He became a diligent letter writer and would spend hours writing to his family, especially the Queen, whose letters would always begin, 'Dearest Grandmama'. When William came across a fisher -man at one of the deep ocean fjords, he would use his best GCSE Spanish to ask if they could post the letters for him. He would provide enough money for a postage stamp and the fisher -man's trouble, and with every faith in the locals handed over his most private correspondence. He could only hope that the letters would make it back home, and miraculously they all did.

William, who was meticulous about making sure his rucksack was always carefully packed and knew where everything was stored, even in the middle of the night, discovered the best way to keep dry and warm was to wear a pair of socks with his sandals. It looked ridiculous, but everyone followed suit. His supply of chocolate-chip cookies also lifted everyone's mood even if it meant piling on a few extra pounds. 'We felt very fat,' he recalled. For the prince, who starts every morning with a short exercise routine, it was a relief when the clouds cleared and made way for blue skies. With the weather much improved, he began his routine with a brief yoga session. William knew some positions from his mother, who practised yoga regularly at Kensington Palace, and his father, who used to train with yoga guru Dr Masaraf Ali. William believes yoga is excellent for the mind and body and still practises today when he has time. Before breakfast, which was always the same lumpy grey porridge cooked over the camp stove, William would teach some of the group how to hold certain positions.

'William would be on his ground mat in his thermal longjohns every morning,' one of the group recalled.

We all felt a bit lazy from sitting around doing nothing because of the weather so we joined in. He would show us how to get into different poses. He knew a lot about yoga and said he practised at home. He was incredibly good at it and was able to hold some of the most advanced positions for minutes on end. He was also an excellent ma.s.seur and would often give some of the girls a back rub at the end of the day. He said he and his father benefited from regular ma.s.sage.

Having their muscles manipulated by the future king proved too much for some of the girls, who descended into fits of giggles.

At the end of the first month it was time for William and his group to spend three weeks tracking and monitoring huemul, an indigenous species of deer that roam the plains of Patagonia. One of their jobs was to shoot the deer with tranquiliser darts and tag them to monitor the population. Trained by the best guns at Balmoral, William was an excellent shot and the best tagger in the group. The rolling hills and expansive scenery, he observed, were not dissimilar to the Scottish Highlands. He was at peace in the beautiful countryside, truly happy and relaxed. For the first and only time in his life he removed the electronic tag around his neck. Surrounded by the snow-capped mountains and with only the huemul for company, there was simply no need for it. William took great delight in ripping it off.

That same night it was bitterly cold, and as the group sat together on the side of a mountain, huddled around the campfire, arms linked for extra warmth, the conversation turned to William. The others had spent the past hour discussing what they planned to do when they returned home. Some had places at universities, others had further adventures to look forward to. William quietly listened to their excited chatter. 'You're all so lucky,' he said as the flames flickered across his face. 'I don't have much choice about my future. One day I will be king, and to be honest I'm not much interested in that at all at the moment.'

Silence enveloped the group and the only sound to fill the chilly air was the crackling of the fire. No one quite knew what to say. They all knew who he was, but to them he was just William. In the breathtakingly beautiful mountains of Chile he had had many hours to contemplate his fate and future, and it had dawned on him that this was as normal as his life would ever be. He was on a gap year with a group of people he would never ordinarily have met, in the middle of nowhere, with no sense of commitment or responsibility. 'William just came out with it. There were only a few of us there, and we were all quite shocked,' recalled a fellow volunteer. 'I remember feeling desperately sorry for him. He was a big strapping boy, but he suddenly seemed so vulnerable. We had all formed a very close bond and he obviously felt as though he could open up. I think he saw his future as a huge burden. He knows what his life will be one day and that his freedom would be short-lived.'

For his whole life William had done everything in his power to be ordinary, and was not yet ready for the spotlight. He had had a taste of it in Canada the March after Diana's death, when Charles had taken him and Harry away for a holiday which had also included a few public engagements. The young prince had been met by screaming teenage girls, and while Harry had laughed at his brother's newfound status as a royal heart-throb, William had flown into a rage and vowed never to go on a walk-about again. Of course, he was young and at a difficult age, but 'Wills mania', as it was referred to in the press, had terrified him, and when he turned eighteen he announced he had no intention of taking on public engagements. 'My father wants me to finish full-time education before doing royal duties and so do I. It will be a few years before I do royal engagements, although I expect, as in the past, I will sometimes accompany my father.'

Right now he wanted to be known simply as William, and like his mother he had his own ideas when it came to protocol. Those who know him well say fear of the future is why William lives for the present. He himself admits that he prefers to take one day at a time rather than worry about what the future holds. 'The biggest things he has to deal with are his past and his future,' one of his closest friends explained. 'That's why he enjoys the present so much. He makes an effort to enjoy every day to the full.' Years later, when he turned twenty-one, William acknowledged for the first time in his life the responsibility of his birthright. 'It's not a question of wanting to be; it's something I was born into, and it's my duty ... Sometimes I do get anxious about it, but I don't really worry a lot.'

William sat on the steps outside the only supermarket in Coyhaique basking in the late-morning sunshine, enjoying the treat which he had promised himself once he had finished his back-breaking task building wooden walkways in the small unspoilt coastal town of Tortel in the heart of Patagonia. The rotisserie chicken smelled delicious, and William tore off chunks of flesh and ate them hungrily it had been weeks since he had eaten meat, he had been surviving on biscuits, tinned tuna, beans and rice. The hard work was finally out of the way and William was looking forward to going home. He had spent the past month sleeping on the floor of a disused nursery which the volunteers had nicknamed the Hotel Tortel. It was basic, but far more comfortable than a cold and damp ground-mat.

It was the penultimate day of the expedition and everyone was in a good mood. William had made a trip to the store to stock up on some snacks for the party being held at the camp that night. The Raleigh International team leaders had planned a fancy-dress bash, and always the first to dive into the dressing-up cupboard, William had already planned his outfit. Before he left he wanted to sample a local bar and had arranged for his protection officer, SAS-trained Dominic Ryan, to drive him and six of his friends to the outskirts of the town later that day. They settled for a run-down bar, where they ordered litres of cheap red wine and lager on tap.

William, who prefers red wine to beer, had not had a drink for months, and although the wine was rather sharp it went down well. As they sat drinking a noise at the window startled them. Outside three local and rather short photographers were jumping up and down trying to get a picture of William. Suddenly the door swung open and they rushed inside only to be promptly ejected by Dominic, who removed each by the scruff of his neck. The curtains were drawn and the group was left to enjoy themselves in peace. As the drink flowed, the antics became more outrageous, and it was William's idea to incorporate a basket of fresh eggs on the bar into their drinking games. Carefully he placed the eggs in the pockets of his trousers and the others took turns to hurl missiles at him. Several hours and too many drinks later they returned to camp worse for wear and covered in egg yolk. William, who had decided to go to the party as Superman, changed into his thermals and used his poncho for a cape. After borrowing a pair of pants from one of the girls, which he wore over his longjohns, he headed for the party.

According to several of the volunteers he spent the evening 'dancing like a lunatic' before launching himself onto the row of tents at the end of the night. The following morning he left as he had arrived, quietly and separately. Mark Dyer had flown back to Santiago to collect his charge, who was feeling particularly wretched thanks to the cheap Chilean wine that William had nicknamed 'cat's p.i.s.s'. As he was fast-tracked into the VIP lounge at Santiago, he readily accepted the upgrade to first cla.s.s and slept solidly on the flight back home.

Chapter 8.

School's out for Harry.

I want to carry on the things that she [Diana] didn't quite finish. I have always wanted to, but was too young.Prince Harry on his eighteenth birthday While William was enjoying his gap year, Harry was counting down the days until the end of school. He had been in regular contact with his brother and longed to share William's adventure but he had A levels to pa.s.s first. Unsurprisingly the teenage prince was more interested in having fun than knuckling down, and it was no great surprise when he failed two of his AS levels at the start of his final year. Harry had planned to take geography, art and the history of art, but eventually dropped the latter. Although he had always been in the lowest stream, he was teased over his poor grades and further humiliated when his tutors insisted he joined the year below to catch up. But even that didn't prove sufficient motivation for Harry to start working.

It was May 2003 and just weeks ahead of his crucial A-level exams when Harry and his friend Guy Pelly, who was still a regular guest at Highgrove, sneaked off to the Royal Berkshire Polo Club in Windsor. Guy, who had a reputation for mooning, something Harry had also taken up in an attempt to put off the tourists who congregated on the street outside Manor House, decided to climb to the top of a forty-foot-high VIP marquee and strip naked. With Harry in tow it sparked a major security alert, and when he returned to Manor House there were stern words from Dr Gailey. None of the boys were allowed out after hours during exam time and Harry had flouted the rules. Charles called his son to voice his concern and the following morning Harry's illicit excursion was front-page news under the headline SO H HARRY, HOW'S Y YOUR A-L A-LEVEL R REVISION G GOING? The answer was it wasn't going well at all, and the prince was on his way to failing his two remaining subjects. It seemed that no matter how many times he had his wrists slapped, Harry would not learn.

I witnessed Harry's partying first hand that spring. I was a young show business reporter at the time for the Mail on Sunday Mail on Sunday and happened to be covering an event at the Kensington Roof Gardens, which is conveniently located just opposite the newspaper's Derry Street offices in west London. I had gone outside onto the terrace for a breath of fresh air and to admire the restaurant's famous flamingos when Harry suddenly emerged from the VIP room. Although it was April it was cool, and as I stood shivering in the night air, Harry waved me in. 'You look freezing,' he said as he tried to light his cigarette in the wind. 'Do come and join my party.' His protection officers were seated at a coffee table at the far end of the room while Harry sat on the floor surrounded by eight pretty girls all clinging to his every word. One of his friends fetched me a gla.s.s of champagne while Harry held court. The subject of exams was only mentioned in pa.s.sing; instead it was plans for the summer that were being excitedly discussed. As he smoked one cigarette down to the filter before lighting another, Harry announced that it was going to be a summer of fun. The fact that it was well after midnight on a Thursday didn't seem to matter to anyone. and happened to be covering an event at the Kensington Roof Gardens, which is conveniently located just opposite the newspaper's Derry Street offices in west London. I had gone outside onto the terrace for a breath of fresh air and to admire the restaurant's famous flamingos when Harry suddenly emerged from the VIP room. Although it was April it was cool, and as I stood shivering in the night air, Harry waved me in. 'You look freezing,' he said as he tried to light his cigarette in the wind. 'Do come and join my party.' His protection officers were seated at a coffee table at the far end of the room while Harry sat on the floor surrounded by eight pretty girls all clinging to his every word. One of his friends fetched me a gla.s.s of champagne while Harry held court. The subject of exams was only mentioned in pa.s.sing; instead it was plans for the summer that were being excitedly discussed. As he smoked one cigarette down to the filter before lighting another, Harry announced that it was going to be a summer of fun. The fact that it was well after midnight on a Thursday didn't seem to matter to anyone.

He was only eighteen, but his confidence was impressive. He was clearly very sociable, and as he sipped his vodka and cranberry it was obvious that he was relaxed and self-a.s.sured among girls. He had recently been voted Britain's most eligible bachelor by society magazine Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar, which cemented his standing among the social elite, not that he needed a poll to prove he was popular. Harry was never short of female admirers and had started dating Laura Gerard-Leigh, the pretty eighteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy stockbroker who lived in Wiltshire.

The couple had been introduced through Guy Pelly, and Laura quickly became part of the princes' Gloucestershire set. She was a good match for Harry: she loved the outdoors and in May the couple allowed themselves to be photographed at the Badminton Horse Trials. As they sat chatting on the lawn, it was clear from their body language that they were an item. The story, which ran on page 7 of the Mail on Sunday Mail on Sunday, was a great exclusive. Although she didn't have aristocratic links like most members of the Glosse Posse, Laura came from 'good stock' and lived in a sprawling mill house in the village of Calne, which was a two-hour drive from Eton. 'They have an awful lot in common and share a boisterous sense of humour,' remarked one of their mutual friends. 'He seems to be quite serious at this point.'

A pupil at St Mary's school in Calne, Laura would drive to Eton to watch Harry play the wall game at weekends and afterwards they would go for Sunday lunch in Windsor. Harry was barred from bringing girls back to Manor House, so every few weekends, accompanied by a protection officer, they would stay at Laura's parents' London town house in Parsons Green. Although the relationship fizzled out after just four months the pair remained close, and the following July (2004) they were seen kissing at the Cartier International Day at the Guards Polo Club, the social event of the summer.

Harry was conscious that he was known as 'hooray Harry' in the press and used his eighteenth birthday in September 2002 to attempt to dispel what he perceived to be the myth of his playboy antics. 'The attention-seeker going too far, too soon, too often' warned the royal commentators of the day. Harry disagreed and used his first official press interview to argue that his critics were wrong. He was not, he insisted, just a party animal. He had seen his Uncle Andrew labelled a playboy and his Aunt Margaret a bon vivant in her heyday, and he was determined not to be stereotyped as the royal rebel. There was far more to him than just partying, and to prove his point he spent the days leading up to his birthday visiting sick children at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. While it may have been a carefully orchestrated PR exercise, there was no mistaking Harry's natural ease in the role. He was tactile and down-to-earth and able to make the sickest children laugh. While William tended to be nervous in front of the cameras, Harry managed to joke with the photographers while making sure the importance of his visit was relayed. He hoped to continue his late mother's charity work. 'I want to carry on the things that she didn't quite finish. I have always wanted to, but was too young.' These were powerful words. After all, the public had seen remarkably little of Harry since he walked in his mother's cortege when he was just thirteen. By his eighteenth birthday he had grown into an articulate, confident and handsome young man. On the advice of his father's advisers at Clarence House, he also apologised for his drug-taking and underage drinking. 'That was a mistake and I learned my lesson.' It would not be long before Harry was apologising again.

The day had finally arrived. Harry carefully placed the black and white portrait of his mother taken by Mario Testino for Vanity Fair Vanity Fair in his trunk. It was 12 June 2003, his final day at Eton, and Harry had almost finished packing up the debris of the last five years. The sun streamed through his window as he peeled his favourite poster of the Whistler ski resort in Canada with the slogan 'Great skiing with you' from the wall. He placed it carefully in his ottoman along with his Indian wall hanging and his St George's flag. Polo stick in hand, he said a fond farewell to the room that had been his home and made his way down the stairs to say his goodbyes. in his trunk. It was 12 June 2003, his final day at Eton, and Harry had almost finished packing up the debris of the last five years. The sun streamed through his window as he peeled his favourite poster of the Whistler ski resort in Canada with the slogan 'Great skiing with you' from the wall. He placed it carefully in his ottoman along with his Indian wall hanging and his St George's flag. Polo stick in hand, he said a fond farewell to the room that had been his home and made his way down the stairs to say his goodbyes.

The boy who had walked through Eton's famous entrance holding his father's hand was now a young man. Casually dressed in a blazer, shirt and baggy chinos with a St George's cross on the belt buckle, Harry strode out of Manor House. Carrying his clothes in a black bin bag he walked across Windsor Bridge for the last time. 'Yes!' he shouted, punching the air. He was finally free.

The Palace wasted no time announcing that he would be applying to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, thus becoming the first senior royal to join the British army in forty years. Harry had always wanted to join the army, and he had spent hours excitedly discussing Sandhurst with Mark Dyer, who had attended the military school before joining the Welsh Guards.

Like his brother, Harry had been promised a summer of fun before his gap year officially started. Just to wind up his father he had mooted the idea of spending a year in Argentina playing polo knowing full well that the suggestion, which was only half-intended as a joke, would send his father into a panic. He had also wanted to do a ski season in Klosters, the picturesque Swiss ski resort where Charles skied for years until he had to give it up because of back problems. Having become friendly with Mr and Mrs Bolliger, the owners of the family-run five-star Walserhof Hotel where the royal family often stayed, Harry had reportedly been offered a job working in the hotel's kitchen and cellars, where he would learn about fine wine and cooking.

Concerned that his younger son already had more than sufficient knowledge when it came to alcohol, Charles dismissed the suggestion immediately; once again taking the advice of his trusted aides, he decided that Harry would begin his gap year in Australia working as a cowboy on a cattle station in the outback. Charles had spent several months in Australia as a schoolboy when he went on a brief attachment to Timbertop, an outback offshoot of the Geelong Church of England Grammar School. He had loved the chance to escape Gordonstoun, which he believed was the worst experience of his life, and loved Australia, where he learned to 'conquer my shyness'. He was adamant that Harry's trip was to be educational as well as enjoyable. The fact that it coincided with the Rugby World Cup in Sydney meant there were no arguments. As far as Harry was concerned, Australia was a brilliant suggestion.

The summer came and went in a drink-fuelled haze as Harry celebrated his A-level results B in art and D in geography. Charles insisted he was delighted: 'I am very proud of Harry. He has worked hard for these examinations and I am very pleased with today's results.' He was especially pleased with his son's B in art. It was Harry's best grade, and he had showed some of his aboriginal-inspired canvases as part of his final submission, but his pride was dented when his art teacher Sarah Forsyth alleged that he had cheated. Miss Forsyth, who claimed she had been unfairly sacked from Eton the year that Harry left, submitted the claim in 2004 as part of her employment tribunal case. She claimed that she had taped Harry admitting that he had written just a 'tiny tiny bit, about a sentence' of a piece of coursework that counted towards his final grade. Eton refuted the thirty-year-old teacher's claims and Harry issued a statement denying categorically that he had cheated, but it was an accusation that privately devastated him. He had never claimed to be the brightest member of his family, but he was a gifted artist.

Despite the setback, Harry moved on. He had the grades he needed for Sandhurst and a summer to enjoy. He didn't stray far from St James's Palace and was such a regular at the nearby Chelsea watering hole Crazy Larry's on the King's Road that it became known as 'Crazy Harry's'. He also enjoyed drinking at the Collection, a sophisticated two-tiered bar on the Fulham Road, and at Nam Long-Le Shaker, a discreet bar on the Old Brompton Road, Harry held the record for being able to drink three of their White Panther c.o.c.ktails in a row. The delicious but potent mix of rum, vodka and coconut milk is served in a giant gla.s.s and usually requires two people to drink it. When he wanted VIP treatment Harry would head to Mark Dyer's gastropub the So Bar, where lock-ins became a frequent occurrence, much to the annoyance of the prince's protection officers, who would sit in their cars outside the venue waiting for Harry into the early hours. It was common for Harry to be out most nights and very soon he was the subject of more lurid headlines. HARRY IS O OUT OF C CONTROL the front pages announced amid reports that the prince's team of personal protection officers needed more back-up. the front pages announced amid reports that the prince's team of personal protection officers needed more back-up.

September 22 2003 could not have come sooner for the beleaguered press officers at Clarence House, who had spent the summer fielding suggestions that Harry's gap year was descending into a drunken farce. Suitably there was an alcohol-fuelled farewell party at the Purple nightclub in Chelsea, hosted by William's friend nightclub promoter Nick House. But as Harry left one media row behind him in England, he faced another as soon as he landed on the tarmac in Sydney. In Australia, where the republican movement was growing, there was outrage over the cost of the prince's trip. TV and radio stations were inundated with calls from angry members of the public demanding to know why they were footing the 250,000 bill for Harry's round-the-clock security. The Palace insisted that twelve full-time protection officers together with state police were necessary to protect the prince. It was just months since the unscheduled appearance of Aaron Barschak, the self-styled 'comedy terrorist' who managed to gatecrash Prince William's twenty-first birthday party at Windsor Castle, and in Australia nine years before a deranged student had fired two shots from a starting pistol at Prince Charles, who was on an official visit. The Palace were not prepared to take any risks.

It was a miserable start for Harry, and things would get worse before they improved. While William had enjoyed a peaceful and private gap year, the Australian press would not leave Harry alone. He flew by private jet to Tooloombilla, 370 miles west of Brisbane, where he was to be based for a month at a simple weatherboard cottage on a farm owned by Noel and Annie Hill, son and daughter-in-law of the millionaire polo player Sinclair Hill, who had coached Prince Charles when he visited Australia. A competent horseman, Harry couldn't wait to get into the saddle, but he spent the first days of his trip hiding from the swarm of photographers that plagued the estate. Harry was furious. He had posed for a photocall in Sydney in return for being left alone to get on with his 100-a-week job on the farm. It was worse than anything he had experienced in England and he threatened to go home. The situation was so serious that St James's Palace was forced to issue a statement urging the media to leave the prince alone. 'He wants to learn about outback trades, not dodge the cameras,' one Palace official complained.

As always, it was down to Charles to convince his son to stick it out. As he'd been promised, Harry was allowed to return to Sydney before Christmas to watch the Rugby World Cup. At Eton he had played scrum half and whenever he could went to Twickenham to watch England play. His cousin Zara Phillips was in Sydney with her boyfriend Mike Tindall, who was in the England squad, and together they worked their way through Sydney's finest bars and clubs. The fact that Harry was busy celebrating with an England player and coach Clive Woodward did not escape the Australian media. 'This [trip] is a waste of money,' Professor John Warhurst, chairman of the Australian Republic Movement, told the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph.

When he returned home to England it had already been announced that Harry would be extending his gap year. With his father's approval, he postponed Sandhurst for a year so that he could follow in his brother's footsteps and explore Africa. Having become quickly reacquainted with his favourite London nightclubs he packed his bags in February and flew to Lesotho before he had the chance to read the salacious story of his night with Lauren Pope, a twenty-year-old topless model who he had partied with at Chinawhite. The glitzy London nightclub could not be more of a contrast to Lesotho, a tiny, mountainous land-locked country in southern Africa with one of the highest rates of Aids in the world. Lesotho, which translates as 'forgotten kingdom', has a population of less than two million, more than half of whom live below the poverty line. It is so tiny it often falls off maps of the continent, which is why Harry called the charity which he launched two years after his first visit Sentebale, which means 'forget me not'. While Australia had been intended as a bit of fun, Harry's two-month trip to Africa was all about his pledge to continue his mother's humanitarian work.

Just to make sure Harry stayed focused, his father's head of press Paddy Harverson accompanied him to Africa. 'He is showing a real and genuine interest in the welfare of young people in Lesotho,' said Mr Harverson. 'By coming here he is bringing attention to the problem.' Harry had struck up a warm rapport with Prince Seeiso, the younger brother of Lesotho's King Letsie III. The two filmed a doc.u.mentary called The Forgotten Kingdom The Forgotten Kingdom about their work at the Mants'ase Orphanage in Mophatoo, a small town two hours from the capital, Maseru. about their work at the Mants'ase Orphanage in Mophatoo, a small town two hours from the capital, Maseru.

As soon as Harry arrived, he adapted to life in the blistering African heat. He visited the local barber and had his head shaved to keep him cool during the day and immediately set to work with eight volunteers building fences and planting trees at the orphanage to provide shade for the children, most of whom had lost their parents to Aids. It was hard physical work, but there was plenty of time for fun, and whenever he had a spare hour in the day Harry would gather the children for an impromptu game of rugby. He had packed a football and a rugby ball and patiently explained the rules of the game before splitting the children into teams. They ran around screaming and shouting and kicking up red dust, and Harry was in his element. Like his mother he adored children, and like Diana he was not afraid to get involved with children infected with the HIV virus. 'This is a country that needs help,' said Harry as he appealed to charities in England. He was not afraid of taboo subjects and was close to tears when he held a ten-month-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather. Harry was so moved by the little girl, called Liketsu, that he handwrote messages of support to her carers and secretly returned to Lesotho the following September to see how she was progressing.

The prince was genuinely at home in his new role, and the trip was judged a huge success in the media. While his work in Lesotho had the desired effect of distancing Harry from his wild-child reputation, there was nothing engineered or fake about his enthusiasm. But, being Harry, it wasn't all work, and in April 2004 he made his first of many trips to Cape Town, where he met up with the girl he had been hoping to b.u.mp into. Harry had first met Zimbabwe-born Chelsy Davy when she was in her final year at Stowe School. Chelsy had been living in England since she was thirteen when her parents Charles and Beverley, who had moved from Zimbabwe to Durban in South Africa, enrolled her at Cheltenham College where she was a model student. She met Harry through a mutual friend called Simon Diss who was a member of the Glosse Posse and a regular visitor to Club H. According to one friend; 'Simon and Harry were great friends. On one occasion Simon introduced Harry to Chelsy thinking that they would make a good match, but nothing happened at that stage because Chelsy was about to finish at Stowe and go back home to South Africa.' Bright, blond and pretty, Chelsy had notions of becoming a model, but she had a brain and planned to use it. After finishing her A levels she took up a place at the University of Cape Town to study politics, philosophy and economics.

When he met her Harry had been immediately smitten. He had listened raptly as Chelsy enthralled him with tales of riding bareback and how she could strangle a snake with her bare hands. When he travelled to Cape Town that April he had every intention of reconnecting with her. He contacted Simon and asked him for Chelsy's address. 'Harry was desperate to meet up with Chelsy,' recalled a friend. 'He called Simon in the UK and said he wanted Chelsy's details and he got straight on the phone to her. Chelsy wasn't impressed that he was a prince, she just thought he was cute so they met up.' When they did, the chemistry was immediate. They had gone out with mutual friends to a fashionable nightclub called Rhodes House and by the end of the evening were locked in a pa.s.sionate embrace on the dance floor. Harry made several trips to see Chelsy again before he returned home to England. Sometimes he would fly to Durban with his protection officer and stay at the Davys' family home. On other occasions he stayed with Chelsy and her brother Shaun at their beachfront apartment in Camps Bay. They were wonderful weekends away made all the more exciting by their secrecy. Chelsy wanted to show Harry as much of Cape Town as possible and they spent hours exploring the coast in her Mercedes convertible. When he kissed her goodbye that summer he promised it would not be long before they would see each other again.

Back in England Harry was counting the days until he would see Chelsy again when he got into a fight with a paparazzo outside a London nightclub called Pangea. He had been enjoying a night out with friends and as he left the club a scuffle broke out when the press pack tried to get pictures of the bleary-eyed prince. Fuelled by drink and startled by the flashbulbs, Harry lashed out at photographer Chris Uncle. As his protection officer pulled Harry away, Uncle was left nursing a cut lip. Fortunately he chose not to press charges, but this would not be the last unedifying episode between Harry and the paparazzi. As was becoming a pattern, Harry again left England under a cloud.

The sound of cicadas filled the night air as Chelsy and Harry stared at the stars and raised their gla.s.ses to propose a toast. They had travelled by private plane to Entre Rios province in the Mesopotamia region in north-east Argentina for a romantic weekend, and it had been perfect. They had dined by candlelight on fresh barbecued fish after an energetic day of hunting and slept in a king-size bed in a private lodge. As the moonlight caught her beach-blond hair, Harry marvelled at his catch. Chelsy was everything he wanted in a girl. For the first time and to his absolute amazement and delight, he was in love. Even more astonishing, he privately marvelled as he finished a gla.s.s of wine, was the fact that he had managed to keep Chelsy a secret. While some of her friends in Cape Town knew about their romance, Harry had only confided to his brother. Mark and Luke Tomlinson, who were staying with him at the El Remanso polo farm in Buenos Aires, also knew about Chelsy, but no one else. But by the end of Harry's trip in November the story of their romance was out. The staff at the lodge had been aware of Harry's new girlfriend and told the Mail on Sunday Mail on Sunday, which broke the story: 'Harry and Chelsy were like any young couple in love, kissing and holding hands and he seemed quite besotted. They looked madly in love and at one point Harry admitted that she was his first true love.' Unlike his father, it seemed Harry knew exactly what being in love meant. In the past there had been flings and infatuations, including a crush on his friend Natalie Pinkham, but as she would later confide to me, Harry was a drinking pal and nothing more. Chelsy was Harry's first true love and he was head over heels.

After their reunion in Buenos Aires, which only strengthened their feelings for each other, it was apparent that the relationship was serious. By December Harry was back in South Africa, holidaying with Chelsy's parents. The fact that the prince was holidaying with a multimillionaire Zimbabwean businessman and landowner, whose company had been reported to have close links with the country's president Robert Mugabe, was said to be something of a concern to the royal family as were other press claims that Mr Davy's company HHK Safaris offered those prepared to pay the opportunity to shoot elephants and lions. Mr Davy, however, robustly denied any such links stating that he had 'never even shaken' Mugabe's hand, while Chelsy in her first and only public statement made clear that her father's company had nothing to do with poaching. Harry joined his girlfriend and her family on the island of Bazaruto off the coast of Mozambique and spent the pre-Christmas break snorkelling. They saw moray eels and giant grouper and fished for sand sharks in the sparkling Indian Ocean. At the end of the day, Harry, who had become close to Chelsy's brother Shaun, would join the family for 'jolling', drinking games on the beach, when they would knock back 'volcanoes' vodka shots with chilli sauce. It was the sort of family holiday Harry had never experienced, and he was happier than he had been in a long time. But soon after he arrived home for Christmas, his dream holiday quickly became a distant memory as he became engulfed in the biggest political storm of his life, an episode which threatened to ruin his military career before it had even started.

It was January 2005 and William and Harry had been looking forward to their friend Harry Meade's twenty-second birthday party ever since the stiff card invitation had arrived at Highgrove. Harry's father, a former Olympic showjumper, had organised a grand marquee in the grounds of the family's sprawling estate in West Littleton, Gloucestershire, and guests had been promised dinner, champagne and a night of fun and frivolity. All they had to do was dress up in accordance with the 'native and colonial' theme. William had opted for the fun take and went as a lion with tight black leggings and furry paws. The princes' close friend Guy Pelly went as the Queen. Harry, however, had other ideas, and as he trawled through the rails of Maud's Cotswold Costumes in Gloucestershire around the corner from Highgrove it was a Second World War n.a.z.i outfit that caught his eye. He had, he later confided, chosen the sand-coloured uniform because he thought it complemented his colouring. Of course, he was to have no idea of the devastating repercussions of his ill-starred choice. While the Afrika Korps costume was in poor taste, what is more surprising is that none of the coterie of aides or the protection officers who accompanied Harry to the store thought to tell the prince that his outfit was offensive and potentially inflammatory.

According to guests at the party, who were dressed in safari suits, cowboy outfits and as Red Indians, the chatter dimmed to an awkward silence when the prince arrived, leading one of the 250 guests to remark, 'That's going to land him in trouble.' The off-the-cuff comment couldn't have been a bigger understatement. When one of the guests sold a picture of the prince in his uniform to the Sun Sun, Harry found himself at the centre of the biggest storm of his life. There he was on the front page smoking, drinking and sporting the German flag on the arm of his jacket and a red armband emblazoned with the swastika on his left sleeve. The timing of the pictures could not have been worse. It was just days before the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and Harry's uncle Prince Edward was due to