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Original poster

Inconsistencies in Spare over hearing about Queen Mother's death

683 replies

Ridemeginger · 10/01/2023 14:52

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?

OP posts:
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Ninjapot · 10/01/2023 16:35

From experience in my own family I can say that if the QM died when Harry was at school it is very unlikely that anyone would have phoned him direct. They would have contacted the school and a member of staff would break the news to him personally.
There's something going wrong with Harry, it's a shame because he used to be so popular. My partner met them last year at a social event and said that Meghan definitely seemed much more relaxed than Harry did. This is a very negative way to live your life for sure.

JudgeJ · 10/01/2023 16:36

IcedPurple · 10/01/2023 16:14

Yes, horrible little brat. What is to be gained from writing shit like this?

Also getting a dig in with his inaccurate "Great loves thwarted by the Palace." I'm not sure a crush on a much older man who ended up marrying a teenager is a 'great love', and i any case, the queen actually tried very hard to find a solution for Margaret to marry Townsend. In the end it was agreed that she could marry him and keep all her privileges other than her place in the LoS, but given that the queen already had 2 healthy children, that was no great sacrifice. But Margaret had already fallen out of love with Townsend. So no 'great love' was 'thwarted'.

Harry's nonsense about 'the palace' as this great impersonal force ruining everyone's lives is so childish and stupid. Rather like the 'man' himself.

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Interesting that he drags Margaret into his whinge-fest. When some of we oldies were chatting about this situation recently I said that I felt that the late Queen Mother was responsible for a lot of problems with the love lives within the RF. She was a raging snob and I would bet good money that it was she who scuppered Margaret's potential marriage to Townsend and Charles's relationship with Camilla. He, Charles, eventually married the granddaughter of one of her friends and it didn't turn out well did it. She didn't attend Anne's second marriage either, he was 'staff'!

HufflepuffRavenclaw · 10/01/2023 16:37

Oh and that pic I linked to of Charles, William and Harry on the slopes was one of the "first day of the holiday photoshoot and then bugger off and leave us alone" things which was common at the time.

Took me 2 secs to google "harry skiing switzerland 2002 charles" to find. And i'm not a professional fact checker or book editor. Of the biggest book of the year.

Var57 · 10/01/2023 16:39

Maybe it's another Mandela effect, or the time shift/split from the CERN Hadron Collider.

Bluekerfuffle · 10/01/2023 16:39

That’s quite a varied recollection. Maybe he’s mixing it up with his great aunt Margaret’s death, which was the same year and not long before the Queen mother.

Bobbins36 · 10/01/2023 16:39

nannyquestion1 · 10/01/2023 15:24

Just a side note - lots of private schools have Saturday school (usually the boarding ones) so he could feasibly have been at school.

I agree with the rest of you! "Inconsistencies" is an interesting word to use...."Wilful lies" might be better.....

@nannyquestion1 there’s literally pictures of them travelling back from Klosters at the time 🤣🤦‍♀️

WillyAndHarold · 10/01/2023 16:41

Well, those who said "wait until you read the whole book" seem to have had a point. It's even more problematic than the extracts

derxa · 10/01/2023 16:42

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 10/01/2023 16:05

One hasty marriage, which looked doomed at the outset and ended up being even worse than expected

Talking through his arse. I was a child at the time but they were regarded as an impossibly glamorous and sexy couple while the queen and PP looked dowdy and dull by comparison. A lot of people were delighted she seemed to have found love again after the Townsend affair. He makes it sound like an elopement to Gretna instead of a full Abbey do. Look at the pics, she was glowing that day.

Said it before, said it again. Despicable little shit, censoriously picking apart the marriage of a woman who can't answer back and who was his GM's beloved sister, whatever her faults.

What a shit he is. Imagine Sarah Chatto or David Linley reading that.

goldierocks · 10/01/2023 16:44

Beees · 10/01/2023 16:18

I'm not sure if this is a serious/tongue-in-cheek comment??!!

It was obviously tongue in cheek.

I'm afraid that due to a cognitive disorder, I find it very difficult to determine whether a piece of written text is 'obviously' meant or not.

I genuinely couldn't tell if it was tongue-in-cheek or not, so I thought it was best to check! You can probably imagine the trouble I'm having with the book (Spare) itself😂

IcedPurple · 10/01/2023 16:45

derxa · 10/01/2023 16:42

What a shit he is. Imagine Sarah Chatto or David Linley reading that.

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Especially as Lady Sarah happens to be his godmother.

He's just a horrible person. Nobody is a real person with real feelings other than himself and his wife.

Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious · 10/01/2023 16:45

Bollindger · 10/01/2023 16:25

Wow so Harry and William stayed on the slopes, are photographed on the slopes, and it has been recorded that the QUEEN called her son 15mins after her mum died to tell him, where upon he told his sons as soon as they arrived back at the Hotel, again photo proof they all flew home together. but the Spare has made up his own story, with NO PROOF.

He doesn't need proof, he knows that some people will believe him no matter what. Even with all the inconsistencies

ArnoldBee · 10/01/2023 16:45

I have my views however...the lack of checking of actual facts just undermines H and M's position and what they are trying to say just becomes undone.

Original poster
Ridemeginger · 10/01/2023 16:46

I must admit, this did make me laugh about Margaret. Not at the boy he was then, but at the giant man child still dwelling on it so seriously (I'm sure he got plenty of nice gifts from his family to make up for it):

Harry went on to recall a Christmas Eve at the Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s country residence, where his great-aunt had given him an unusual present.

He wrote”: “I tore off the paper. It was…

"A biro.

“I said: ‘Oh. A biro. Wow’.

“She said: ‘Yes. A biro’.

“But it wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it.

“I said: ‘Oh. A fish biro! OK’.

“I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”

It sounds like a Nessa Christmas present scenario from Gavin and Stacey.

OP posts:
DerangedViper · 10/01/2023 16:47

Ninjapot · 10/01/2023 16:35

From experience in my own family I can say that if the QM died when Harry was at school it is very unlikely that anyone would have phoned him direct. They would have contacted the school and a member of staff would break the news to him personally.
There's something going wrong with Harry, it's a shame because he used to be so popular. My partner met them last year at a social event and said that Meghan definitely seemed much more relaxed than Harry did. This is a very negative way to live your life for sure.

Especially as that school was Eton, hardly any distance from Windsor Castle, and also short journey time from all the London palaces (esp if you get outriders to get you straight through intersections). So v easy for either a member of the family (if not at the bedside) or a trusted member of staff to go over in person.

But as it was Easter Saturday, the school was closed, so he's just plain wrong

HufflepuffRavenclaw · 10/01/2023 16:47

But isn't giving rubbish/token gifts a royal family thing?

Beees · 10/01/2023 16:47

I genuinely couldn't tell if it was tongue-in-cheek or not, so I thought it was best to check! You can probably imagine the trouble I'm having with the book (Spare) itself😂

Goodness me it must be a heck of challenge. 😂Just😂Just assume it's all made up and you'll probably be not far off the truth. The only bits that are real are the fact he's used his families names to inspire the characters in his work of fiction.

DerangedViper · 10/01/2023 16:49

Ridemeginger · 10/01/2023 16:46

I must admit, this did make me laugh about Margaret. Not at the boy he was then, but at the giant man child still dwelling on it so seriously (I'm sure he got plenty of nice gifts from his family to make up for it):

Harry went on to recall a Christmas Eve at the Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s country residence, where his great-aunt had given him an unusual present.

He wrote”: “I tore off the paper. It was…

"A biro.

“I said: ‘Oh. A biro. Wow’.

“She said: ‘Yes. A biro’.

“But it wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it.

“I said: ‘Oh. A fish biro! OK’.

“I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”

It sounds like a Nessa Christmas present scenario from Gavin and Stacey.

But it's been all over the press (from Diana, who hadn't been warned and got it wrong) that the RF always exchange small or novelty presents.

Why would he expect different? And yeah, everyone gets a pressie they don't like much from time to time.

Fladdermus · 10/01/2023 16:49

Ridemeginger · 10/01/2023 16:46

I must admit, this did make me laugh about Margaret. Not at the boy he was then, but at the giant man child still dwelling on it so seriously (I'm sure he got plenty of nice gifts from his family to make up for it):

Harry went on to recall a Christmas Eve at the Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s country residence, where his great-aunt had given him an unusual present.

He wrote”: “I tore off the paper. It was…

"A biro.

“I said: ‘Oh. A biro. Wow’.

“She said: ‘Yes. A biro’.

“But it wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it.

“I said: ‘Oh. A fish biro! OK’.

“I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”

It sounds like a Nessa Christmas present scenario from Gavin and Stacey.

I thought that's what they did. Didn't someone get a leopard print toilet seat once?

Blossomtoes · 10/01/2023 16:50

What a shit he is. Imagine Sarah Chatto or David Linley reading that.

They must be all too aware of what he’s like. I imagine the family WhatsApp group is buzzing with “He said what?” With lots of emojis.

ScribblingPixie · 10/01/2023 16:51

HufflepuffRavenclaw · 10/01/2023 16:47

But isn't giving rubbish/token gifts a royal family thing?

Exactly. It used to be in the papers a lot about giving each other the cheapest, naffest, jokiest presents they could find. It reads like he's taken a fun family tradition and used it to rubbish one of them.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 10/01/2023 16:53

Ridemeginger · 10/01/2023 16:46

I must admit, this did make me laugh about Margaret. Not at the boy he was then, but at the giant man child still dwelling on it so seriously (I'm sure he got plenty of nice gifts from his family to make up for it):

Harry went on to recall a Christmas Eve at the Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s country residence, where his great-aunt had given him an unusual present.

He wrote”: “I tore off the paper. It was…

"A biro.

“I said: ‘Oh. A biro. Wow’.

“She said: ‘Yes. A biro’.

“But it wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it.

“I said: ‘Oh. A fish biro! OK’.

“I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”

It sounds like a Nessa Christmas present scenario from Gavin and Stacey.

RF always give each other joke gifts. The queen got rubber gloves one year because she did the washing up at picnics. Princess Anne gave or was given a bath mat.

Ryder68 · 10/01/2023 16:53

I think the queen was once given that singing fish thing too.

BethJ62 · 10/01/2023 16:54

HufflepuffRavenclaw · 10/01/2023 16:47

But isn't giving rubbish/token gifts a royal family thing?

Yes , I am sure I once read that Harry gave HM a bath cap .

Youwhatnowbiggles · 10/01/2023 16:54

Surely you can’t call something a biography if actually contains a shed load of fiction? I’m genuinely starting to feel quite startled at the publishers (of books) and producers (of shite telly) now - notwithstanding everything else have they exploiting someone with what are becoming glaringly obvious mental health issues?! I mean they’ll be making more cash than he is and the longer this goes on the more unstable and bonkers he looks... They need to stop enabling and start helping - he’s cut off everyone else so there’s only them left!!

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 10/01/2023 16:54

Ryder68 · 10/01/2023 16:53

I think the queen was once given that singing fish thing too.

Bloody thing. My mother had one and threatened to leave it to me in her will.