Prince William video that Prince Harry is sure to hate
A candid video shows Prince William pulling off a huge coup while Prince Harry cut a sad, isolated figure.
COMMENT
Checkout boy, dishwasher, glassie – Prince William, the Prince of Wales has never ever had a part-time job of the usual variety, which is why I’m wondering if subconsciously he is trying to make up for the youth he missed out on. (Paging all armchair Freudians!)
In July, the prince was busy slinging hamburgers to promote his Earthshot Prize and on Thursday, there he was behind the tills at a Pret A Manger in Bournemouth, to highlight their initiative to help those at risk of homelessness, one of the tentpole issues he has set out to tackle.
I think we can all agree that ‘Prince does good thing, wears blazer’ is not a story anyone cares about, but what set William’s Pret engagement apart were the crowds.
Like he was the fifth Beatle, the 41-year-old was greeted by a clamouring public and large crowds of the overly-excited variety that would normally face Taylor Swift, all of them eagerly trying to take videos or get a selfie with the prince.
What sets this event apart even further is not just the eager, jostling throng but the timing.
This was William’s first day back on the job after nearly two months of sitting down, interspersed with lying down, at various castles and grand homes over the summer months. But more intriguingly, Thursday also happened to mark the return to Britain’s shores of one Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, palace defector and aspirant podcaster.
He is back in the UK for the WellChild Awards, an organisation he has been patron of (and dogged, passionate supporter of) since 2007. It is also the duke’s first trip since the coronation, a flying dash in and dash out visit on his way to the Invictus Games, which kick off in Dusseldörf this weekend.
Timing, as the saying goes, is everything. On the very day that Brother Two, the beardy, often belligerent one, looked all set to steal a good chunk of the spotlight, how interesting that Brother One just happened to be out and about putting on the ol’ royal razzle dazzle.
Whether the scheduling of William’s Bournemouth away day was entirely coincidental (after all, royal outings are hardly things that can be planned on the fly due to security arrangements) here we are: William splashed all over X (Twitter, we hardly knew ye) like he is the second coming in a nicely-ironed shirt.
One video alone of the prince leaving Pret had over 170,000 views at the time of writing.
Imagine Harry, a half-eaten room service club sandwich abandoned as he scrolled through social media, watching his older brother getting the rock star treatment.
William, after all, is the man that the duke called his “arch-nemesis” in his memoir Spare, a book in which the prince very clearly, of the whole royal gang, comes off the worst. To Aitch’s telling, his sibling, over the years, was by turns jealous, petty and, in one famous incident, physically aggressive, and the 400-page bestseller paints a deeply unflattering portrait of the man who will one day be King.
Yet despite the Californian exile’s attempts to tar and feather “Willy”, the only conclusion that can be drawn watching these Bournemouth videos is, the great unwashed don’t give a jot. If Harry had hoped to shift public opinion towards the Prince of Wales or to unmask him as the supposed villain of the palace piece then, no dice.
The UK remains entirely taken with William and his wife Kate, the Princess of Wales with the couple notching up the highest favourability numbers according to the latest polling by YouGov, and with three quarters of Britons thinking the prince is doing a bang up job. (And Harry? Less than one third of the UK has a favourable view of him.)
Looking back, nearly nine months to the day that Spare was released, the Duke of Sussex’s attempts to take his brother down a peg or 47 would seem to have backfired.
As William was in Bournemouth being feted, filmed and pawed by the public, the photos and video of Harry at the WellChild Awards could not tell a starker picture.
The location of the event was, according to the Daily Mail, kept heavily under wraps, which seems a tad dramatic if you ask me. (Don’t worry, no one is.) The duke and the event’s organisers were “absolutely paranoid” about the venue being revealed, a source told the Mail.
There, we saw Harry being original flavour Harry, charming the incredible children being honoured and spending an hour talking to this year’s recipients behind the scenes.
It was a sad reminder of what was lost when he and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex upped sticks to throw their lot in with Hollywood. There are many criticisms that can be lobbed at the duke but there cannot ever be a smidgen of a doubt that the 38-year-old is as gifted as his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales at connecting with those suffering or those less fortunate.
Still, despite seeing Harry on his game and charming the pants off people – a sad echo of what could have been – the Duke of Sussex cut a lonely, isolated picture.
His father King Charles had “no time in the diary” to see his son, per the Mail, despite His Majesty still being on holidays in Scotland. Meanwhile, his brother William is reported to have not spoken to him since Spare was released.
In fact, based on what has been reported so far, he is not known to have seen a single family member.
Nor has there been any indication that the King might have lent his son a place to crash, having yanked back the keys to the Sussexes’ former Windsor home Frogmore Cottage earlier this year.
That image of Harry, in the city where he was born, without a family home to stay in and blanked by his father and brother, is a poignant one.
Who could have predicted that we would end up here? With William being mobbed like a lesser member of One Direction and Harry left to (possibly) check into the Best Western Fitzrovia and using guest Wi-Fi?
The coming days will see the brothers go head-to-head engagement-wise again, with the Waleses set to mark the first anniversary of Her late Majesty’s death in Wales before flying to France for the Rugby World Cup, while the duke is off to Germany for the Games.
William might be one goal up now, but a lot is set to happen in the next few days. Will Harry shoot and score? And will I ever resist the lure of a cheap cliche? Stay tuned.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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