Inconsistencies in Spare over hearing about Queen Mother's death

[Ridemeginger]

Harry writes that he found out about the Queen Mother's passing away (in March 2002):

"At Eton, while studying, I took the call. I wish I could remember whose voice was on the other end. A courtiers I believe. I recall that is was just before Easter, the weather bright and warm, light slanting through my window, filled with vivid colours. "Your Royal Highness. The Queen Mother has died." "

News reports at the time reported he was skiing in Switzerland with Charles and William. The Queen Mother died on 30 March 2002. Easter Saturday. He wouldn't have been at school.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/622457.stm

Recollections may vary, indeed! I doubt very much Harry would have taken the call if he's been with his father.

Didn't the editors do any fact checking?

No

They don't need to

It's all being spotted anyhow, and so it speaks for itself.

Oh look, Great granny left the bulk of her £14m estate to Harry too - left more to him than William to make up for the fact William would be king.

www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a22686998/prince-harry-prince-william-inheritance-queen-mother/

And then he was also getting his money from Charles - around £2.5m per year, I think.

Plus army pension.

Or, y'know, he could get a job and work for a living like the rest of us.

Why wouldn't hje? If that was what her will said, then that was what happened. The only thing that would have prevented it would be if her executors went to court and applied for it to be varied, e.g. if they thought having the money would be dangerous for him, e.g. because he'd spend it all on drugs. Tempting as it is to think that is possible, you can be sure that if it had happened he would have made sure by now that we'd all heard all about it at excruciating length.

Harry did get his money. He said he had it in the Oprah interview. Estimated at over £10m. Plus many of her precious possessions. Plus the bulk of a £14m inheritance from the Queen Mother (to be shared with William, but he apparently was left most of it). Plus at least £2.5m a year from Charles and an army pension for weed money.

He didn't serve long enough to reach his pension point (ie the point at which your pension is payable immediately). So what he has is like a frozen award - which becomes payable when he reaches military pensionable age (55 or 60 depending on when you joined, rank, and whether in one of the bits with bespoke rules)

It was reported years back that both William and Harry drew their Army salaries (because it was an administrative PITA to do otherwise) but donated them back to military charities.

So he probably does have 10 years worth of pension that he could draw later (or, as before, donate)

Two bedrooms. Hardly breaks the bank to furnish a small cottage.

Credit where credit’s due, you are on fire across all the threads - you must be knackered 🤣

Plus how much furniture did it need when Harry had lived there for several years?

Unless he’d been sleeping, sitting and eating on the floor surely there was already furniture?

And given that it was always simply a pre-marriage stop gap it hardly needed redone from top to bottom.

Thanks for the correction @mpsw

Harry only had the £20ish million then when his wife was forking out for a cheap sofa and they were really suffering.

I know, right!

Mind you, I hope he got round to buying a table, was sad to hear he’d been eating takeaways over the kitchen sink 🤣. Although I misheard and thought he said under the sink - I had a mental image of him slumped on the floor, back against the kitchen unit, shovelling Chinese into his mouth whilst listening to “All By Myself”.

Harry only had the £20ish million then when his wife was forking out for a cheap sofa and they were really suffering

His ex girlfriend Cressida complained that he was right with money.

I love my sofa.com sofa, I’m upset they are being so maligned. It’s the nicest sofa I have ever owned. The way he’s describing it, you would think they had to get the most threadbare offering from a charity shop.

Imagine complaining you had to buy a sofa when both you and your wife are millionaires.

The problem here is wether he is lying or misremembering, it means his ‘historical record’ (as he called it) is not historical record. It also shows he has poor recall in (at least) some situations. His recall of being unsupported and distanced from his father and brother, isn’t accurate. So yes, it throws more doubt onto what he says.

Considering the amount of money spent on flying Meghan around in private aircraft, I don’t think money was an issue. Mind you, I think that was his dad’s money. It seems he had money for drugs and partying, which will have been spending on what he wanted.

What had he done with the millions he was given annually from his father that he was too skint to pay? More likely he didn’t want to put his hand in his pocket and now he can blame it on his family. Perhaps he already did at the time. It won’t have given Meghan a very good opinion of them if this is the case, would it?

I think playing polo costs a huge amount too. I reckon things like skiiing, shooting, polo, trips to Vegas were non-negotiable and new sofas to replace ones which were completely adequate would be seen as a waste of money to H. However to M, who had run a monetisable lifestyle blog it would have seemed shocking to not live in instagrammable surroundings.

Honest questions

What did Harry sit on when he lived alone before moving in with Meghan?

What happened to Meghans furniture from her Canadian home?

According to the gift that is the thinternet...it was also pissing down with rain on the 9th of February 2002

According to Wikipedia, the Cambridges lived in Nottingham Cottage after their marriage when they weren’t in Anglesey, from 2011 to 2013.

It was decorated by Kelly Hoppen.

Harry moved in after they left so had lived there for about 4 years when he got engaged, and had plenty of time to buy sofas if his brother had taken the furniture.

I suspect Harry couldn’t care less what the house looked like so maybe it was a bit tatty by the time Meghan arrived (although there would have been staff to deal with cleaning and up keep). It probably showed the wear and tear of his post army ‘bachelor’ years.

I genuinely don’t know what is wrong with Ikea lamps and Sofa.com sofas, but perhaps Harry had never thought much about where he lived, or how you bought a sofa, and maybe he had given Meghan the impression that they would get a palace, but with a Martha Stewart finish.

I suspect that decisions about who gets which Royal Property and how much is spent on upkeep have always been very political, particularly among the residents of Kensington Palace. Harry was comparing himself to his brother, but his cousins are further down the pecking order than him, and then there are the Gloucesters and Kents.

He's also comparing at very different life stages - there's only, what, 3 years between him and William, but by that point William and Kate had been together over a decade, married for about 7 years and she was growing their 3rd kid. They were in very different places.

Harry was offered exactly what William got - a bit KP apartment after he got married. The Gloucesters moved out and renovation work was in progress before they all fell out and he and M decided on Frogmore instead.

*a BIG KP apartment, not bit - it's apparently massive

Wealthy successful A-list actor? Meghan?

Parallel universe or collective amnesia?

Maybe one of Harry's recovered memories?

Well if I called her a D list gold-digger, I'd get told off, wouldn't I? Oprah and the Clooneys don't tend to hang out with minor actors. It's been confirmed by her supporter that she is a soap opera actor with little money. Other sources say maybe just the odd £5m - which is plenty to shell out on a cheap sofa for the rent free, Central London character property being provided by her in-laws; paying her own way and contributing to the marital home to this limited extent as a good feminist should when they have the means and have been treated generously.

Another fact check issue. Harry says by 2002, Sophie and Edward, Andrew, his father had finished growing their families and no new babies were being born.

Edward and Sophie’s children were born in 2003 and 2007.

I can’t understand why his publisher has allowed so many basic errors to get through.

That is very strange - maybe he discounts them because they are so much younger, but it’s a bit rude!

Do you have the quote?