Angela Mollard: Prince George is missing his ‘Gan Gan’ and confronting his future

Prince George has quietly learned he will be king over the past couple of years so at the same time he mourns the loss of his ‘Gan Gan’ he is starting to understand just how different his life will be to others.

Do you know who I feel sorry for this week?

Well, the new King and his siblings obviously. And William and Harry, who will no doubt reflect on their mother’s death when they attend their granny’s funeral on Monday.

But they’re all grown-ups.

No, who I feel deeply sad for is Prince George.

Nine is a knowing age. Old enough to be cognisant of events yet too young to process, or have the vocabulary to articulate, the tumult of complex emotions.

King Charles was just three when his grandfather died so he wouldn’t have understood the magnitude of a monarch dying. Both he and William are experiencing the weight of a shifting crown for the first time. But what must it be like to be George, seeing his destiny come home in a hearse through a rain-pocked London?

Of all the weeks for a young boy to contemplate his future and to see in sharp detail how it will unfold, it was not this one.

The Queen with her great grandson and the future king, Prince George.

Imagine – you’ve just moved house and the very day you start a new school your Gan Gan dies, tipping the nation into mourning. Your mum comes to collect you and it’s obvious she’s been crying.

Over the next few days a teacher who barely knows you and friends you’ve only just met tiptoe around you. No one mentions the Queen – the pre-teens have been forewarned by their parents – but every kid has asked you for a playdate because networking in upper class Britain stops for no one. Meanwhile your little sister, always more confident, is doubtless revelling in the attention.

George has quietly learned he will be king over the past couple of years. You can picture William and Catherine using that gentle voice parents employ when they want to convey something important but want to make it sound like it’s the most normal thing in the world. But kids aren’t silly. Granted, George probably thought every kid was greeted by 300 photographers when he went to the hospital, aged almost two, to visit his newborn sister. But when your granny’s face is on your pocket money, your school friends live in houses not palaces, your mum heads out in a tiara and you’re constantly told you must go for a wee before you step on to a balcony, you soon work it out. Plus, none of your mates get a front-row seat at the footy.

Two future monarchs – Prince William with his on Prince George. Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Ironically, when his parents moved him and his siblings to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor just a few weeks ago it was all part of a plan to give him the sort of upbringing his mother enjoyed. Country friends, gardens to roam in and, critically, his siblings at the same school, would ensure his childhood was ordinary and nurturing with family memories crystallised before duty came calling.

Now he’s sleeping in an unfamiliar bedroom, his mum and dad are permanently wearing black and there’s lots of hushed conversations about his uncle who, come to think of it, he hasn’t seen for a while. It’s times like these a nine-year-old could use an Uncle Harry.

Children are often more robust than we think but this strange week in September will imprint on George forever. His grandpa is now King – and projecting his grief and exhaustion on to leaky pens – his mum now bears Diana’s title and all the ghosts that conjures, and his papa is a heartbeat from the throne.

George, meanwhile, has not just lost his Gan Gan but also his name. A thoughtful kid, you can imagine him teaching little Louis how to write “Cambridge” before he started school last week. Now that name has been erased and he is George Wales.

The queue on the South Bank of the River Thames, alongside Tower Bridge, as people wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen. Picture: AFP.

If there were any innocent dreams of being a fireman or a doctor or a footballer this week they evaporated for good. Sovereign is a hard word to spell; an even harder concept to shoulder.

Still, he will be more emotionally prepared and deeply loved and supported than any monarch in history. His parents are doing it their way, eschewing boarding school and making sure that, for now, family comes first. How fortuitous that Carole and Michael Middleton are now just down the road. They’ve doubtless been with their grandchildren all week. Perhaps now George, Charlotte and Louis may be able to spend Christmas with them, decorating the tree, making reindeer cupcakes and taking their cocker spaniel, Orla, because there are none of those stupid corgis to bully her.

For now, however, the trio are still going to school. Tomorrow is the funeral and having attended his great grandfather’s memorial in March, George understands what’s happening.

Sadly, the only person who genuinely knows how he might be feeling right now is gone.

For Princess Elizabeth was just 10 – a whisper older than George is now – when she learned of her destiny in 1936 when her uncle abdicated. “Does that mean you’re going to be queen?” asked her sister Margaret in much the manner you can picture Charlotte pestering George.

“Yes,” she replied, realising instantly that she could no longer hope to become a farmer’s wife.

“I suppose it does.”