"our little visitor" ????? Who describes a baby like that? Is he saying the baby was only visiting and then went, back to his real family?DORIA WAS STAYING with us, waiting for the baby to come.
Neither she nor Meg ever strayed far. None of us did. We all just sat around waiting, going for the occasional walk, looking at the cows.
When Meg was a week past her due date, the comms team and the Palace began pressuring me. When’s the baby coming? The press can’t wait forever, you know. Oh. The press is getting frustrated? Heaven forbid! Meg’s doctor had tried several homeopathic ways to get things moving, but our little visitor was just intent on staying put.
We got into a nondescript people-carrier and crept away from Frogmore without alerting any of the journalists stationed at the gates. It was the last sort of vehicle they suspected we’d be riding in. A short time later we arrived at the Portland Hospital and were spirited into a secret lift, then into a private room.
Our doctor walked in, talked it through with us, and said it was time to induce.
Meg was so calm. I was calm too.
But I saw two ways of enhancing my calm. One: Nando’s chicken. (Brought by our bodyguards.) Two: A canister of laughing gas beside Meg’s bed. I took several slow, penetrating hits. Meg, bouncing on a giant purple ball, a proven way of giving Nature a push, laughed and rolled her eyes. I took several more hits and now I was bouncing too.
When her contractions began to quicken, and deepen, a nurse came and tried to give some laughing gas to Meg. There was none left. The nurse looked at the tank, looked at me, and I could see the thought slowly dawning: Gracious, the husband’s had it all.
Sorry, I said meekly.
Meg laughed, the nurse had to laugh, and quickly changed the canister.
Meg climbed into a bath, I turned on soothing music.
In our overnight bag we had the same electric candles I’d arranged in the garden the night I proposed. Now I placed them around the hospital room. I also set a framed photo of my mother on a little table. Meg’s idea.
Time passed. Hour melted into hour. Minimal dilation. Meg was doing a lot of deep breathing for pain.
Then the deep breathing stopped working.
She was in so much pain that she needed an epidural. The anesthetist hurried in.
Off went the music, on went the lights. Whoa. Vibe change. He gave her an injection at the base of her spine. Still the pain didn’t let up. The medicine apparently wasn’t getting where it needed to go. He came back, did it again. Now things both quietened and accelerated.
Her doctor came back two hours later, slipped both hands into a pair of rubber gloves.
This is it, everybody. I stationed myself at the head of the bed, holding Meg’s hand, encouraging her.
Push, my love. Breathe.
The doctor gave Meg a small hand mirror.
I tried not to look, but I had to.
I glanced, saw a reflection of the baby’s head emerging. Stuck. Tangled. Oh, no, please, no.
The doctor looked up, her mouth set in a particular way. Things were getting serious.
I said to Meg: My love, I need you to push. I didn’t tell her why. I didn’t tell her about the cord, didn’t tell her about the likelihood of an emergency C-section.
I just said: Give me everything you’ve got. And she did.
I saw the little face, the tiny neck and chest and arms, wriggling, writhing. Life, life—amazing! I thought, Wow, it really all begins with a struggle for freedom. A nurse swept the baby into a towel and placed him on Meg’s chest and we both cried to see him, meet him. A healthy little boy, and he was here. Our ayurvedic doctor had advised us that, in the first minute of life, a baby absorbs everything said to them. So whisper to the baby, tell the baby your wish for him, your love. Tell. We told.
I don’t remember phoning anyone, texting them. I remember watching the nurses run tests on my hour-old son, and then we were out of there. Into the lift, into the underground car park, into the people-carrier, and gone.
Within two hours of our son being born we were back at Frogmore.
After a few hours I was standing outside the stables at Windsor, telling the world: It’s a boy.
Days later we announced the name to the world. Archie.
The papers were incensed. They said we’d pulled a fast one on them. Indeed we had. They felt that, in doing so, we’d been…bad partners?
Astonishing. Did they still think of us as partners? Did they really expect special consideration, preferential treatment—given how they’d treated us these last three years? And then they showed the world what kind of “partners” they really were. A BBC radio presenter posted a photo on his social media—a man and a woman holding hands with a chimpanzee. The caption read: Royal baby leaves hospital.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
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"our little visitor" ????? Who describes a baby like that? Is he saying the baby was only visiting and then went, back to his real family?
He’s deified her. It’s all a bit weird
I do think that he’s loving this though. He’s finally the star of the show - even though it’s a tit show!
Visitor - surrogate?!
MEG AND I ATTENDED the WellChild Awards, an annual event that honored children suffering from serious illnesses.
October 2019.
I’d attended many times through the years, having been a royal patron of the organization since 2007, and it was always gutting. The children were so brave, their parents so proud—and tortured. Various awards were given that night for inspiration, fortitude, and I was presenting one to an especially resilient preschooler.
I walked onstage, began my brief remarks, and caught sight of Meg’s face. I thought back to a year ago, when she and I attended this event just weeks after taking that home pregnancy test. We’d been filled with hope, and worry, like all expectant parents, and now we had a healthy little boy at home. But these parents and children hadn’t been so lucky.
Gratitude and sympathy converged in my heart, and I choked up. Unable to get the words out, I held the lectern tight and leaned forward. The presenter, who’d been a friend of my mother, stepped over and gave my shoulder a rub. It helped, as did the burst of applause, which gave me a moment to restart my vocal cords.
Soon after, I got a text from Willy. He was in Pakistan on tour. He said I was clearly struggling, and he was worried about me.
I thanked him for his concern, assured him I was fine. I’d become emotional in front of a roomful of sick kids and their folks just after becoming a father myself—nothing abnormal in that.
He said I wasn’t well. He said again that I needed help.
I reminded him that I was doing therapy. In fact, he’d recently told me he wanted to accompany me to a session because he suspected I was being “brainwashed.”
Then come, I said. It will be good for you. Good for us.
He never came.
His strategy was patently obvious: I was unwell, which meant I was unwise.
As if all my behavior needed to be called into question. I worked hard at keeping my texts to him civil.
Nonetheless, the exchange turned into an argument, which stretched over seventy-two hours. Back and forth we went, all day, late into the night—we’d never had a fight like that over text before.
Angry, but also miles apart, as if we were speaking different languages.
Now and then I realized that my worst fear was coming true: after months of therapy, after working hard to become more aware, more independent, I was a stranger to my older brother. He could no longer relate to me—tolerate me.
Or maybe it was just the stress of the last few years, the last few decades, finally pouring out.
I saved the texts. I have them still. I read them sometimes, with sadness, with confusion, thinking: How did we ever get there?
In his final texts, Willy wrote that he loved me. That he cared for me deeply. That he would do whatever is needed to help me. He told me to never feel any other way.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
October 2019.
I’d attended many times through the years, having been a royal patron of the organization since 2007, and it was always gutting. The children were so brave, their parents so proud—and tortured. Various awards were given that night for inspiration, fortitude, and I was presenting one to an especially resilient preschooler.
I walked onstage, began my brief remarks, and caught sight of Meg’s face. I thought back to a year ago, when she and I attended this event just weeks after taking that home pregnancy test. We’d been filled with hope, and worry, like all expectant parents, and now we had a healthy little boy at home. But these parents and children hadn’t been so lucky.
Gratitude and sympathy converged in my heart, and I choked up. Unable to get the words out, I held the lectern tight and leaned forward. The presenter, who’d been a friend of my mother, stepped over and gave my shoulder a rub. It helped, as did the burst of applause, which gave me a moment to restart my vocal cords.
Soon after, I got a text from Willy. He was in Pakistan on tour. He said I was clearly struggling, and he was worried about me.
I thanked him for his concern, assured him I was fine. I’d become emotional in front of a roomful of sick kids and their folks just after becoming a father myself—nothing abnormal in that.
He said I wasn’t well. He said again that I needed help.
I reminded him that I was doing therapy. In fact, he’d recently told me he wanted to accompany me to a session because he suspected I was being “brainwashed.”
Then come, I said. It will be good for you. Good for us.
He never came.
His strategy was patently obvious: I was unwell, which meant I was unwise.
As if all my behavior needed to be called into question. I worked hard at keeping my texts to him civil.
Nonetheless, the exchange turned into an argument, which stretched over seventy-two hours. Back and forth we went, all day, late into the night—we’d never had a fight like that over text before.
Angry, but also miles apart, as if we were speaking different languages.
Now and then I realized that my worst fear was coming true: after months of therapy, after working hard to become more aware, more independent, I was a stranger to my older brother. He could no longer relate to me—tolerate me.
Or maybe it was just the stress of the last few years, the last few decades, finally pouring out.
I saved the texts. I have them still. I read them sometimes, with sadness, with confusion, thinking: How did we ever get there?
In his final texts, Willy wrote that he loved me. That he cared for me deeply. That he would do whatever is needed to help me. He told me to never feel any other way.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
Seriously he is getting uglier by the dayMust be exhausting, all that collapsing and weeping.
This photo from the article made me lol, waving to fans, more like waving at nothing, I would say...
View attachment 1873455
Harry complains about press intrusion yet (as well as courting it constantly), by slagging off other members of the RF he forces them into the spotlight. Catherine is normally left to get on with her life but now she's being papped because the newspapers want to see a reaction. 
Hilarious if so, must make Smegs blood boil
Hope she got mega jel reading this part
MEG AND I DISCUSSED getting away, but this time we weren’t talking about a day at Wimbledon or a weekend with Elton.
We were talking about escape. A friend knew someone who had a house we could borrow on Vancouver Island. Quiet, green—seemingly remote. Only reachable by ferry or plane, the friend said.
November 2019.
We arrived with Archie, Guy, Pula, and our nanny, under cover of darkness, on a stormy night, and spent the next few days trying to unwind. It wasn’t hard. From morning to night we didn’t have to give a thought to being ambushed. The house was right on the edge of a sparkling green forest, with big gardens where Archie and the dogs could play, and it was nearly surrounded by the clean, cold sea. I could take a bracing swim in the morning.
Best of all, no one knew we were there. We hiked, we kayaked, we played—in peace.
After a few days we needed supplies.
We ventured out timidly, drove down the road into the nearest village, walked along the pavement like people in a horror movie. Where will the attack come from? Which direction? But it didn’t happen. People didn’t freak. They didn’t stare. They didn’t reach for their iPhones. Everyone knew, or sensed, that we were going through something. They gave us space, while also managing to make us feel welcome, with a kind smile, a wave.
They made us feel like part of a community. They made us feel normal. For six weeks. Then the Daily Mail printed our address.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
We were talking about escape. A friend knew someone who had a house we could borrow on Vancouver Island. Quiet, green—seemingly remote. Only reachable by ferry or plane, the friend said.
November 2019.
We arrived with Archie, Guy, Pula, and our nanny, under cover of darkness, on a stormy night, and spent the next few days trying to unwind. It wasn’t hard. From morning to night we didn’t have to give a thought to being ambushed. The house was right on the edge of a sparkling green forest, with big gardens where Archie and the dogs could play, and it was nearly surrounded by the clean, cold sea. I could take a bracing swim in the morning.
Best of all, no one knew we were there. We hiked, we kayaked, we played—in peace.
After a few days we needed supplies.
We ventured out timidly, drove down the road into the nearest village, walked along the pavement like people in a horror movie. Where will the attack come from? Which direction? But it didn’t happen. People didn’t freak. They didn’t stare. They didn’t reach for their iPhones. Everyone knew, or sensed, that we were going through something. They gave us space, while also managing to make us feel welcome, with a kind smile, a wave.
They made us feel like part of a community. They made us feel normal. For six weeks. Then the Daily Mail printed our address.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
Really horrible people write really horrible stuff about people on social media. You’d have to have been living under a rock your whole life not to understand this. You don’t even have to be a public figure, just stick your head above the parapet on an issue and comment and you will get a load of abuse. What I don’t understand is why you would read it. Going by this excerpt from the book he and TW seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time trawling SM for offensive comments. What purpose, other than to be outraged/upset, does this serve?
I hope to God they’re not true. I was horrified reading what I read today.
Just started reading the last thread that closed but want to thank @Anna2020 for the excerpts.
Poor Alan Titchmarsh he must be feeling threatened by Hazza's flowery love story and gushing description of hunter manliness.
He'll need to up his game in his next novel - add a few long haired lions swishing their manes under the moonlight.
Right back to reading thread #10000003
Poor Alan Titchmarsh he must be feeling threatened by Hazza's flowery love story and gushing description of hunter manliness.
He'll need to up his game in his next novel - add a few long haired lions swishing their manes under the moonlight.
Right back to reading thread #10000003
Has there ever been a more selfish man? IT's all about HIS healing ... forget everyone he's insulting and hurting. It's beyond pathetic. All the time Catherine wasted with him, she can never get that back. He's clearly got no backbone, bloke needs to be knocked-out.
Within hours the boats arrived.
An invasion by sea. Each boat bristled with telephoto lenses, arrayed like guns along the decks, and every lens was aimed at our windows. At our boy. So much for playing in the gardens.
We grabbed Archie, pulled him into the house.
They shot through the kitchen windows during his feeds.
We pulled down the blinds.
The next time we drove into town, there were forty paps along the route. Forty. We counted. Some gave chase. At our favorite little general store, a plaintive sign now hung in the window: No Media. We hurried back to the house, pulled the blinds even tighter, returned to a kind of permanent twilight. Meg said she’d officially come full circle. Back in Canada, afraid to raise the blinds.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
An invasion by sea. Each boat bristled with telephoto lenses, arrayed like guns along the decks, and every lens was aimed at our windows. At our boy. So much for playing in the gardens.
We grabbed Archie, pulled him into the house.
They shot through the kitchen windows during his feeds.
We pulled down the blinds.
The next time we drove into town, there were forty paps along the route. Forty. We counted. Some gave chase. At our favorite little general store, a plaintive sign now hung in the window: No Media. We hurried back to the house, pulled the blinds even tighter, returned to a kind of permanent twilight. Meg said she’d officially come full circle. Back in Canada, afraid to raise the blinds.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
Yes, it's quite bleeping sickening to watch. Still, the higher he flies the harder the crash will be. Once they've milked him, they'll turn and destroy him. I cannot bleeping WAIT for that day.
I disliked these men, and they didn’t have any use for me. They considered me irrelevant at best, stupid at worst.
And oh how right they were! No
bleeping hell, that’s some real tea from him, isn’t it?
I’ll wait with bated breath to see when other journalists pick this story up…then what will Hazza do?
So so much rubbish to unpick.
I have spent months on the fence about the whole idea of the surrogate. As it seemed almost too impossible to be true.
This extract, is so.....wrong about childbirth, in every since facet, that I get the impression Harold hasnt been anywhere near a baby actually being delivered in a maternity suite.
Its the kind of 50s imagery of the dad pacing downstairs eagerly waiting for the birth of his child, then being allowed into the room to meet his clean and tidy baby and mother sitting neatly in bed. After all the hard work and messy nature of childbirth is done.
I had an easyish birth, fairly quick. But even so, it was painful and messy.
The account is full of mistakes, It isnt laughing gas, its entinox, something very different. You cant have an epidural towards the end, on both my pregnancies, I was too far dilated to be offered an epidural.
I dont know a single first time mum, who is calm for the birth, particularly if it is overdue and you are needing to be induced.
What on earth is the point of the hand mirror? If you are pushing down or heavy breathing, how are you going to be at the correct angle to look at your vagina, and if the doctors or midwives and husband are there....how do you get enough space?
And as for the sense of humour failure about Danny Baker, a bbc sports presenter/comedian! The BBC sacked him immediately, It was a stupid photo ..but it was meant to be a joke.
It's been two years since the Danny Baker Meghan and Harry tweet | British GQ (gq-magazine.co.uk) in this quote he explains what the joke was meant to be: “what a nightmare. A goofy picture intended to gently ridicule privilege goes boom and how. If you’d put a gun to my head before all this and asked, ‘What royal princess has had a baby?’ I'd have had to take a punt. Well, I know now, don't I? Only a poisonous loon would have gone for the 'joke' as it became interpreted. Obviously once alerted to what royal baby it was, I was appalled. I immediately deleted the picture, flagged my shocking error and apologised. Beyond that, what on earth can you do?”
As much as he irritates me, Pen Farthing or someone else in the military should set up an alternative to the Invictus Games, one that is in the UK. To insult the Royal family and then stand beside ex-soliders who got injured fighting for Queen and Country is a bleeping joke.
The bright studio lighting is playing havoc with Harry's hair
Believe me, the 'woke' are pissed off too. I'm putting my hand up as one of the leftie woke .
These people do nothing to help anything. They just use buzz words and pontificate. They're too busy wanking over themselves.
He understands little of what he says because she's told him what to say, and she just says it to gain goddess points.
Can’t stay here, we said.
And, yet…? Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking.
What if life could be like that…all the time? What if we could spend at least part of each year somewhere far away, still doing work for the Queen, but beyond the reach of the press? Free. Free from the British press, free from the drama, free from the lies. But also free from the supposed “public interest” that was used to justify the frenzied coverage of us.
The question was…where?
We talked about New Zealand. We talked about South Africa. Half the year in Cape Town maybe? That could work. Away from the drama, but closer to my conservation work—and to eighteen other Commonwealth countries.
I’d run the idea by Granny once before. She’d even signed off on it. And I’d run it by Pa, at Clarence House, the Wasp present. He told me to put it in writing, which I’d done immediately. Within a few days it was in all the papers and caused a huge stink. So now, at the end of December 2019, when I was chatting with Pa on the phone, saying we were more serious than ever about spending part of the year away from Britain,
I wasn’t having it when he said that I must write it down.
Yeah, um, did that once before, Pa. And our plan immediately got leaked and scuppered.
I can’t help you if you don’t put it in writing, darling boy.
These things have to go through government.
For the love of…
So. In the first days of January 2020, I sent him a watermarked letter broadly outlining the idea, with bullet points, and many details.
Throughout the exchanges that followed, all marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, I hammered the essential theme: we were prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to find some peace and safety, including relinquishing our Sussex titles.
I rang to get his thoughts. He wouldn’t come to the phone.
I soon received a long email from him saying we’d have to sit down and discuss the whole thing in person. He’d like us to come back as soon as possible. You’re in luck, Pa! We’re coming back to Britain in the next few days—to see Granny.
So…when can we meet?
Not before the end of January.
What?
That’s more than a month away.
I’m in Scotland. I can’t get there before then.
I really hope and trust that we will be able to have further conversations without this getting into the public domain and it becoming a circus, I wrote. He responded with what felt like an ominous threat: You’ll be disobeying orders from the monarch and myself if you persist in this course of action before we have a chance to sit down.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
And, yet…? Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking.
What if life could be like that…all the time? What if we could spend at least part of each year somewhere far away, still doing work for the Queen, but beyond the reach of the press? Free. Free from the British press, free from the drama, free from the lies. But also free from the supposed “public interest” that was used to justify the frenzied coverage of us.
The question was…where?
We talked about New Zealand. We talked about South Africa. Half the year in Cape Town maybe? That could work. Away from the drama, but closer to my conservation work—and to eighteen other Commonwealth countries.
I’d run the idea by Granny once before. She’d even signed off on it. And I’d run it by Pa, at Clarence House, the Wasp present. He told me to put it in writing, which I’d done immediately. Within a few days it was in all the papers and caused a huge stink. So now, at the end of December 2019, when I was chatting with Pa on the phone, saying we were more serious than ever about spending part of the year away from Britain,
I wasn’t having it when he said that I must write it down.
Yeah, um, did that once before, Pa. And our plan immediately got leaked and scuppered.
I can’t help you if you don’t put it in writing, darling boy.
These things have to go through government.
For the love of…
So. In the first days of January 2020, I sent him a watermarked letter broadly outlining the idea, with bullet points, and many details.
Throughout the exchanges that followed, all marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, I hammered the essential theme: we were prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to find some peace and safety, including relinquishing our Sussex titles.
I rang to get his thoughts. He wouldn’t come to the phone.
I soon received a long email from him saying we’d have to sit down and discuss the whole thing in person. He’d like us to come back as soon as possible. You’re in luck, Pa! We’re coming back to Britain in the next few days—to see Granny.
So…when can we meet?
Not before the end of January.
What?
That’s more than a month away.
I’m in Scotland. I can’t get there before then.
I really hope and trust that we will be able to have further conversations without this getting into the public domain and it becoming a circus, I wrote. He responded with what felt like an ominous threat: You’ll be disobeying orders from the monarch and myself if you persist in this course of action before we have a chance to sit down.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
- Status