Through months of intensive therapy, Prince Harry has managed to reclaim precious childhood memories of his mother, Princess Diana, that he had long believed were lost forever. The Duke of Sussex, who was just twelve years old when his mother died in a Paris car crash, has openly described his past anguish at having few recollections of her.
The Therapeutic Breakthrough
In his deeply personal memoir Spare, Harry confesses he had spent years telling people he couldn't remember his mother, stating "My memory was dead." This changed dramatically during therapy. "Now, through months of therapy, my memory twitched, kicked, sputtered. It came to life," he writes. The prince describes being visited by a thousand images of his mother, some so vivid they appeared like holograms.
A particularly powerful technique involved using scent to trigger memories. His therapist asked him to carry a bottle of his mother's favourite perfume, First by Van Cleef and Arpels. Harry compares sniffing the familiar fragrance to taking "a tab of LSD," explaining it instantly transported him back to joyful moments in his mother's Kensington Palace apartment.
Vivid Childhood Moments Reclaimed
Among the flood of returning memories were cheerful, domestic scenes that painted a picture of Diana as a fun-loving mother. Harry fondly recalls her having a waterbed, upon which he and his brother William would "jump up and down on the mattress, screaming, laughing, our hair standing up straight."
He also remembered his mother's mischievous side during his time at Ludgrove School. Despite the school banning outside sweets, Diana would stuff Opal Fruits into his socks, both of them giggling during the clandestine operation. A young Harry recalled squealing, "Oh Mummy, you're so naughty."
Breakfast memories also resurfaced, revealing that Diana "loved" eating grapefruit and lychees in the morning rather than drinking tea or coffee.
Facing the Paparazzi Together
The recovered memories weren't all joyful, however. Harry recalled terrifying paparazzi chases while sitting in the backseat of a car with Diana driving. "She leaned her head on the steering wheel and wept while the paps kept clicking and clicking," he writes, highlighting the intense media pressure his family faced.
Yet Diana also used her playful nature to fight back against press intrusion. During a 1990 holiday on Richard Branson's Necker Island, when photographers swarmed the beach by boat, Diana devised a clever counter-attack using her sons' water balloons. "Mummy quickly rang up a catapult and divided the balloons among us. On the count of three, we began raining them down on the heads of photographers," Harry remembers.
This incident was corroborated by Diana's former protection officer, Ken Wharfe, who noted that William "was glowing with pride when he ran to tell his mother, and was very much a hero in her eyes" after the successful water balloon assault.
Another amusing memory involved returning home to find supermodels Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, and Cindy Crawford waiting at the top of the stairs—a deliberately embarrassing prank orchestrated by his mother that left both young princes, then approaching puberty, completely flustered.
Ultimately, through his therapeutic journey, Harry managed to recover something he had longed for—the sound of his mother's infectious laughter. Sitting in his therapist's office, it suddenly rang "loud and clear," and the prince "cried with joy to hear it." These recovered memories have given him back crucial pieces of the mother he lost nearly three decades ago.
