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?

Beginning of chapter 35:

“Our family was no longer getting larger. There were no new spouses on the horizon, no new babies. My aunts and uncles, Sophie and Edward, Fergie and Andrew, had stopped growing their families. Pa, too, of course. An era of stasis had set in.

But now, in 2002, it dawned on me, dawned on all of us, that the family wasn’t static after all. We were about to get smaller.

Princess Margaret and Gan-Gan were both unwell.”

Incredibly insensitive to write that. Sophie and Edward hadn't "stopped growing their families". Sophie had an ectopic pregnancy in December 2001. She had Lady Louise in November 2003, prematurely and traumatically. In between those 2 traumatic events, she would have been recovering and clearly trying again and getting pregnant.

He's such a knob.

She never brought any money into the marriage. Engleson gave her a decent divorce settlement but she was still not wealthy with her spending habits. The PR people tried to fudge it because they did not want it to be added to an already long list of incompatibilities. Her take home pay from Suits (she wasn't a lead) has been vastly exaggerated to this end.

Did nobody at Penguin Random House consider that this is a well known family, and they really, really need to get their facts right?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1696277.stm

I understand that as a teenager he might not have been particularly focused on what was going on around him, but did none of them notice the Wessex children at the funeral?

Getting these sort of easily checkable facts wrong really is silly.

I'm going with being drug addled in his teens and 20's have confused him & caused some extreme paranoia. He's already in 2002 admitted smoking cannabis and taking cocaine at 16/17, and Charles took him on a visit to a rehab centre as a short sharp shock (that's been public record for years).

Louise was born in 2003 and James in 2007.

His infamous vegas trip was 2012

so "recollections may vary" between him being 16ish and 28....

He was 17. His aunt had a traumatic, possibly life threatening and well publicised procedure in December 2001. His great aunt Margaret died in February 2002 and his GGM at the end of March 2002. We're talking about weeks between these events. To say Edward and Sophie (recovering from a life threatening operation and the death of their first child) had "stopped growing their family" during this period is just reprehensible.

Isn't the state of sofas etc, similar to the role of second hand clothes at private schools. Poor people don't want to look poor so care about new clothes/fashionable sofas, the hereditary rich can't fathom being poor so don't think they look poor in secondhand/worn out.

Plus, it does seem tone deaf complaining about buying a sofa in the current climate.

I think the sofa and the thing about the tights could have been sorted out in AIBU.

Odd all round asits very far from statis as the queens grandchildren then start to get married in 2008, and great grandchildren appear 2010 onwards.

2002 - Margaret & QM pass (Stais according to harry, no one marrying or being born)
2003 - Lady Louise born
2007 - Vicount Severn born
2008 - Autumn Kelly marries Peter Phillips
2010 - first Great grandchild for QE2
2011 - William marries etc.
2012 - from here there is pretty much a grandbaby a year for QE2
2013 George born

Harry made much of the fact he was writing this book "not as the Prince I was born, but the man I have become".
I can accept that teenagers are often self obsessed and blinkered to the realities of life around them. But this is written by a man who has experienced the devastation of a miscarriage and still managed to completely ignore the same trauma experienced by his uncle and aunt. How hurtful for Edward and Sophie but also for Louise and James as they're clearly totally forgettable to their older cousin.
But it's also a bizarre thing to write. In 2002 the next generation of the family were already being born. Margaret was about to die but her son already had children so the family was increasing further down the generations!

He could have meant he was at school. (meaning his age!) And on a ski trip

No, if you read he says "At Eton, while studying, I took the call". He then writes about the light though the window.

This puts him physically there.

Have you actually read the passage? There is no way he could maybe have meant that!

No regular teenage boy sits there keeping tabs on the birth rates of his wider family.

Margaret was about to die but her son already had children so the family was increasing further down the generations!

One of her grandchildren was born in May 2002. I admit I had to check Wikipedia, but it’s not my family.

The impression is that he isn’t that bothered about details, and nobody bothered to check.

But a 38 year writing a book in retrospect should have the sensitivity to check.

Did I hear this correctly (listening via audio so not always catching words properly). It’s in chapter 54.

”every day upon waking at 5am we were forced to down a huge bottle of water. The bottle was army issued, black plastic, a left over from the (Boer?) war. Any liquid inside tasted of first generation plastic”

If so, Boer war ended in 1902, plastic was invented in 1907. Seems an odd thing to say, unless I AM mishearing it.

David Linley's son was born 1999 and his daughter in 2002.
I obviously didn't know that either but had a feeling that was the case - found it very easy to check...

He's no regular boy. From a young age he seems to have been constantly looking around and keeping tabs on who's who, who has what and why doesn't he have it too.

a left over from the (Boer?) war.

Sarcasm maybe?

First mass produced plastic would have been 1950s. I'd put this one down to sarcasm and/or having zero knowledge of military history.

It's not hard to know the year your family members were born. Or even check when releasing a book about your family that you expect people to believe.

I don’t think he has been keeping tabs, if he had it would be more factual, this seems like someone searching for memories to fit his narrative.

Ooh good call actually 🙂