Oh Christ, I don’t what I’m not looking forward to the least: Halloween, Christmas or a general election. Halloween is a waste of effort, M&S seem to think Christmas Day is tomorrow and never in the history of British politics have there been so many people who deserve so few votes than right now. Still, I should be grateful. Some people have far bigger things to contend with on a day to day basis and on that note here comes a day in the life of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and a very troubled soul indeed.
I like to wake up early. When I was younger and dressed up as coked up Nazis the candle (not the one in the wind) was being very much burnt at both ends and that meant my bodyguards often wouldn’t wake me up until well past lunch time, but being in the army really gave me discipline and so I’m quite often sitting in my dressing gown having a boiled egg as early as 10am on a weekday. I don’t always sleep well. Sometimes I get woken by all the problems I have to face and so I go to the bathroom, but then often I’ll just see my dead mother, Princess Diana, Queen of Hearts, in the mirror and that just freaks me out so I have to go back to bed and hope my wife, former Hollywood actress Meghan McSparkle Markle, will give me a hand job as I cry myself back to sleep.
Once I’m up there are all manner of things to be doing. First I take a long shower and try not to think about my dead mother. When I was in the army I used to take cold showers but I’m fucked if I’m going to do that now that I’ve bagged the world’s easiest, sorry, most demanding job. Being a new father I know how terribly responsible I am for the proper upbringing of my son, Archie Alfie Charlie Battlelord Jammy Balding Windsor, and that’s why me and Meghan took a long time choosing the seven nannies that buckle to his every whim. It’s hard to have a conventional childhood in our family and things were tough when I was growing up too. For starters my mum died, but I don’t like to talk about it, so let’s move on.
It can be pretty exciting when your day is generally arranged by someone else. I might appear to be strong and independent but behind closed doors I tend to do what the fuck I’m told by the army of PR gurus and press agents that run my diary. One minute I could be shaking hands with a kid in a leukemia ward and telling him all the troubles I faced as a child growing up in the royal family and the next I could be flying thousands of miles on Elton John’s private jet to open an Ebola cemetery in Botswana. I like to think I’m a bit of a low carbon footprint people’s Prince and that I can relate to folk from all backgrounds, especially starving Africans. I learnt a lot about that from my mother, before she died, and sometimes I can see her face in the bloated, malnourished belly of a crying African baby. And that makes me sad. Shame about the baby too.
Whatever I’m doing and wherever I’m doing it I simply can’t cope without having Meghan by my side. I guess it’s a reflection of just how unconventional I am that I would choose a mixed race American for a wife. I like to think I’m smashing down boundaries to show that I’m just a normal guy and that our royal family isn’t seen to be inherently racist and is capable of welcoming change with open arms. Also, when Meghan gives me a blow job she likes to stick a finger up my arse, and who can argue with that. I suppose I think of Meghan as my rock, only when I do it makes me think of Paul Burrell, who was my mother’s rock until he nicked all her stuff and tried to sell it on Ebay. I don’t think my dead mother would have been too happy about that and I still see her face every time I’m on Ebay. And when I see a rock. And Dwayne Johnson.
If there are a few moments free Meghan and I like to get out and away from all those troubles we have to face but that I haven’t really satisfactorily elaborated on. Since we got married we seem to have fallen out with almost everyone in the family and that makes me sad. I love my brother and I’m really sorry he has even less hair than me and is married to a manipulative, controlling shrew, but to be honest we don’t always see eye to eye. It’s so hard to agree on the best way to piss our lives up the wall, using money made by people poorer than us, but in the end I’ll be there for him when he becomes King. Maybe, deep down, he still wishes he was flying around in that big shiny helicopter, pulling yachtsmen out of the water and that kind of thing. It must be tough for him being the eldest and losing his mother when I was younger and more vulnerable, but we try not to talk about it. I still see my mother’s face when I look at a helicopter. Or a yacht. In fact the sky and the sea both bring back pretty haunting memories as well.
I guess the problem with going out is that there’s all the press and paparazzi. I honestly don’t know what the big deal is. I’m just a regular guy, an honest Joe who just wants to live his life in peace. Ok, so I’m a member of the most famous family in the world and an heir to the throne of Great Britain and I married a semi-talented, vaguely famous actress and my mother was the most famous woman on earth (before she died) but I really don’t think that’s any reason for all the attention. Why do people bother, I mean it’s not as if all the common people out there are paying our wages or anything. I see the face of my mother in the flash of every camera around me and I really think that’s had a big impact on my mental health. Meghan’s pretty hacked off too. Her friends told her not to marry me – “no Meghan, don’t do it, don’t marry that fabulously wealthy, profoundly charismatic Prince and heir to the throne of Great Britain, we’re not remotely jealous” is what they probably said – but she chose love over all of that. And I love her so much in return. When she’s doing reverse cowgirl and looks back at me I could swear I can see my dead mother in her face, but I don’t mention it, because that would spoil the moment.
By the end of a day like that we’re both exhausted for some reason but we still find a few minutes to kiss our son on the forehead before settling in to our evening routine. We’re just a normal, everyday couple, like all the other couples out there, and we can’t wait to relax in our little cottage, which is close to my grandmothers castle. We recently had it renovated and it only cost around £2.4 million, which frankly is a steal. I can’t say I ever had to get my wallet out but I guess that’s one of the few perks to being a Windsor. I don’t think my dead mother had a lot to do with the enormous, not-really-a-cottage-more-like-a-fucking-mansion, cottage we live in but I see her face every time I lift the toilet seat or ask a bodyguard to change a light bulb, and that makes me sad. I spend almost every waking hour being sad about all the horrible things I have to live with. Meghan feels the same and some evenings we’ll open a bottle of Chateau Lafite ’59 and each write a list of our troubles and then have a competition to see which of us is unhappiest. I usually win because I’m heir to the throne and Meghan’s mum is still alive.
And then it’s time to curl up in bed. Sometimes Archie wakes up and we have to call a nanny to breast feed him, but often he’s out like a light and I can get on with taking Meghan roughly from behind while she wears a short blonde wig. And then we both cry ourselves to sleep. Sometimes I dream I’m competing at the Invictus Games, a competition I came up with all by myself after being inspired by the almost identical ‘Warrior Games’ in the United States. I dream I’m running as fast as I can but I’m not doing it because I lost both my legs in a roadside bomb: no, I’m doing it because I’m being chased by the press and I have to keep explaining that we’re a new breed of royals and we’re not going to put up with this anymore. But the press don’t seem to care because they all earn a fuck sight less than me for standing in all weathers waiting for me to come out of Fortnum and Mason or get to the bottom of a ski slope or mention my dead mother, The Peoples Princess. Maybe one day they’ll simply start to understand how hard it is being me. Maybe one day I’ll be happy, but right now I just don’t know how I cope.
Some details may differ from day to day but I think I nailed it pretty well.
G B Hewitt. 29.10.2019
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 