Prince Harry has spoken of his lifelong regret over the brevity of his last phone call with his mother, Princess Diana, before her death in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997. In a documentary marking the 20th anniversary of her death, Harry recalled that he and his brother William, then aged 12 and 15 respectively, were holidaying with their father at Balmoral Castle when they received the news.
Harry said in the HBO film Diana, Our Mother: 'All I do remember is probably, you know, regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was. And if I'd known that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother – the things I would have said to her.' The princes had spoken to Diana every evening following their parents' separation.
Less than a week later, the brothers walked behind their mother's coffin through the streets of London, watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people globally. Harry later reflected: 'My mother had just died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands watching me while millions more did on television. I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today.'
Prince William described feeling 'completely numb, disorientated, dizzy' and said the experience was like 'an earthquake has just run through the house and through your life'. The young princes were shielded by their father, Prince Charles, and the Queen, who were criticised at the time for not mourning publicly. William said: 'In order not to break down we have to put on a game face.'
Harry admitted that the first time he cried was at his mother's burial at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire. The brothers have since spoken about the difficulty of processing their grief at such a young age, with William noting that being 'so small at that age, it was very difficult to communicate or understand your feelings'.
