On the night of her death Princess Diana called her two sons for a chat.
At the time, 15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry rushed through the conversation so they could get back to playing with their cousins in Balmoral.
They had no idea that would be the last time they would talk to their mum. Just hours later, Diana was killed in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris.
Now, 35 and 32, Prince William and Prince Harry have opened up about their regrets over that fleeting conversation from their childhood.
In a documentary called Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy (due to air on Channel 7’s Sunday Night program next week) Prince William admitted that conversation “still sticks in [his] mind” 20 years later.
She was many things to many people, but to her two boys, Lady Diana was just mum. Coming soon to #SN7.
PREVIEW: https://t.co/4ZEQpxGCiP pic.twitter.com/czeMp5L5tt— sunday night (@sundaynighton7) July 15, 2017
“Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know, ‘see you later’. If I’d known now obviously what was going to happen I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it and everything else. But that phone call sticks in my mind, quite heavily,” Prince William said.
Harry has also wrestled with guilt over the years.
“It was her speaking from Paris. I can’t really necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was,” he said.
“Looking back on it now it’s incredibly hard. I’ll have to sort of deal with that for the rest of my life. Not knowing that was the last time I was going to speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling her life was going to be taken that night.”
The documentary is the first time Prince William and Prince Harry have sat down together and spoken about their mum on air.
Gradually, as time has gone by, Princess Diana’s sons have become more open about the loss of their mother and the effect this has had on their mental health.
Top Comments
You never know really when it will be the last time you speak to someone you love. I always make sure no matter how brief or much of a hurry I'm in (or even if I've had an argument) that I tell them I love them. Hindsight is always great or difficult in these situations
They (and people in a similar position ) really should stop beating themselves up about that short conversation.
For starters - they were just kids who were simply in a hurry to get back to playing and that's something she would have expected.
Regrets about "if only we'd known" are a bit futile.
Seriously, none of us would leave the house if we knew what impact doing just that would have on the world.........in fact (to go a bit deeper ) NOT leaving the house also has an impact - ie, "if only I'd been there" etc, etc.
Our presence in the world for better or worse IS important so we may as well try to make it better - OK ?
Positive energy always creates a positive result...........................xx's