How the Prince from a broken home learned the value of true friendship

TAKE away the unusual circumstances into which he was born and Prince William is like many other 30-year-olds who have carried forward into adulthood the sorrows and insecurities of a child from a broken home.

But the extraordinary position he found himself in meant that the whole world was privy to the competing kiss ‘n’ tell versions of his parents’ unhappiness, infidelities and break up. With apparent disregard for the emotional wellbeing of their two young sons, they did what few ordinary people would do – washed the dirty linen in public.

As one unnamed friend of Prince William’s told his biographer Penny Junor: “Imagine what it must have been like to live through the s**t of William’s childhood: the divorce, the acrimony, the shame of it all being played out in public, his mother’s Panorama interview, then she’s dead. His father’s mistress hanging around, then moving in.

“It makes you shudder. Even if you were living in a sink estate, you’d feel sorry for your neighbour if they’d gone through that.”

Junor – the journalist, broadcaster and writer, who has written many celebrity biographies and five previous royal biographies – took as her premise when a publisher approached her to write the story of the Prince’s life so far, that it is a wonder this young man is as normal as he appears to be. A childhood littered with lovers, tantrums and loss – particularly the loss of his adored mother when he was only 15, could have turned Prince William into a very different man than the one we see today.

Key friends, former staff and advisers were authorised to speak to Junor about William, and she also had the huge library of research she’d built up for her own previous works on Prince Charles, the late Princess and the royal family in general.

The picture she puts together of William is that of a lovable and loving, well-balanced, determined, loyal and steadfast man with a strong sense of duty and a keen sense of fun. Unsurprisingly, given his upbringing and what happened to his mother, he is obsessive about privacy and fiercely protective of his wife Kate.

A photographer’s use of a long lens to pry into their enjoyment of a recent private holiday in the South of France and snatch photos of the Duchess sunbathing topless is said to have left him “incandescent” and, having informed himself on privacy law, he is almost certain to have instigated the current legal action himself.

No-one knows at this point what the fall-out from this episode will be; in the meantime the royal couple continue their Jubilee tour with fixed grins and moments of visibly genuine enjoyment of the crowds, the noise and being feted wherever they go.

Junor was intrigued as to what makes the Prince so apparently stable, sane and comparatively normal. Having talked to many of his friends and associates, she seems to have come away with great admiration for those who took their duty seriously in protecting, guiding and loving him so far. Despite everything, some bouquets go to both of his parents.

“Diana adored her boys, no question,” says Junor. “But she had never been mothered properly herself because her own mother had been physically abused by her husband and left with another man. After that they weren’t really close and at the time of Diana’s death she and her mother hadn’t spoken for months. She didn’t know the difference between being a really good friend and being a mother who has to impose boundaries.”

Junor reveals that Diana got rid of nanny Barbara Barnes (or “Baba” as William called her) because the highly insecure Princess was jealous of her four-year-old son’s loving bond with her.

Prince Charles, who Junor says has always had a “tactile and close” relationship with his sons, nonetheless missed out on some opportunities to spend time with them when they were younger because of his royal duties. However, says the writer, her research has established that the Prince has a very good relationship with William and Harry

In their later teenage years, she says “...they didn’t have Diana and Charles as attachment figures, yet they had around them a very strong support group and people within the royal household who were looking out for them, including the Queen and Prince Phillip. Whenever the Queen was at Windsor she would have William over for tea from Eton, which was nearby. He has always looked to her for advice.”

“William treats his friends very well, and they in turn watch his back and never talk about him to outsiders. He has had a couple of very good role models in headmasters and house masters 
at Ludgrove School and Eton, where it was very helpful that 
he was among the children of famous and wealthy people 
who mostly didn’t turn a hair when he arrived.”

No-one should underestimate the strength the brothers give to each other, says the biographer. Although very different characters – and in Junor’s opinion “Harry will always be a bit wild” – they have been each other’s greatest support.

She reveals that, towards the end of his time at the University of St Andrews, William went through a crisis because he was so worried about Harry’s various partying antics, including wearing a Nazi armband to a fancy dress do.

Prince William had spent a lot of time talking to his brother on the phone instead of doing revision, and was at one point seriously worried that he might fail his exams.

When it comes to understanding William, says one good friend, “you just have to look at the Middleton family”. Far from setting her cap at the Prince and pursuing him, Kate took her time and cast a long hard look over what she would be letting herself in for if her relationship with the second-in-line were to lead to marriage. They’d had a couple of previous cooling off periods prior to the one we all know about in 2007 and, says Junor, the strongest factors in drawing them back together was Kate’s normality and the very loving family she came from.

What kind of king does Junor think the Prince will eventually make?

“A good one whom the public will love,” says Junor. “He looks to the Queen more than to Prince Charles for guidance and wisdom. There’s no better person he could use as a model,

“He doesn’t want to be a celebrity, and the Queen too has always shied away from celebrity. Luckily William has been well guided and advised. He is also with a woman who will hopefully help him to build a happy family – the thing he most wants.”

Prince William: Born to be King is published by Hodder and Stoughton, £19.99. To order call 01748 821122. Postage costs £2.85. Penny Junor will be appearing at The Craiglands Hotel, Ilkley, on Sunday, October 14 at 4.30pm. Information and tickets: www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk

A royal biographer

Penny Junor is best known for her books on the Royal Family, with biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales and Charles, Prince of Wales, and Charles and Diana: Portrait of a Marriage, The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor. Her book on the Waleses reportedly “alienated” both of them. Other works include books on Margaret Thatcher, John Major and actor Richard Burton. She assisted Sir Cliff Richard in writing his number one bestseller My Life, My Way.