Just finished 'Spare'...

[HerReputationMadeItDifficultToProceed]

… and I encourage anyone who’s even vaguely interested in this story to give it a read. Especially if what’s been leaked has made you at all angry, because I think in context everything makes a lot of sense.

I wasn’t a Harry and Meghan hater before reading this, but I wasn’t a fan girl either. Like many Brits, I find a lot of Americans- especially West Coast Americans- quite irritating and Meghan firmly falls into that camp for me. I’m sure she’s nice enough, but she’s very American and very perky and much like Wednesday Addams, I don’t do perky. However, I suspect that her intentions and generally good and that like most of us she’s got good and bad qualities. She’s clearly ambitious and I think that she probably initially dated Harry based on that ambition and on getting a platform, although I think that she genuinely loves him now.

The ghost writer has done a great job at capturing Harry’s personality I think; he comes across as introspective and thoughtful but funny and bright.

I think that Harry has a good soul; I think that he’s kind and has had a hard time of it growing up. I also think he’s a bit clueless and naive and has been in a bubble, but I think he acknowledges that and wants to understand and change. Undoubtedly losing his mother at the age he was had more of an outward impact on him than it had on William. He’s also been a victim of his dad’s wishywashy parenting. It sounds like- and looks like to me from my vantage point as a normal citizen who knows bugger all except what I’ve seen in the media- that Charles has been there for his kids to an extent, but not in a hands on or especially useful way. It also seems clear that Charles has always put Camilla first. From almost the moment Diana died it seems that he wanted, above everything else, to rehabilitate Camilla’s image so that they could marry. I think that he put that above being a father and the way Harry writes about their relationship makes that clear too.

I also think that it’s suited the palace to portray Harry as dimwitted and feckless to show William in a better light and that Harry has every right to be angry about that and not want to play that game anymore (and to call it out now). Especially as it’s obvious that the palace haven’t kept up their side of the bargain and protected Harry from the media in return.

I also think that the media have treated H and M poorly and it’s clearly the case that the palace has used them and news stories about them to divert from other newsworthy problems… certainly Prince Andrew, perhaps William’s affair/s. Is Harry overly jumpy about the media and the paparazzi in particular? Yes, of course. Who wouldn’t be with his background. But they’ve also obviously been hounded and harassed.

I do think that Harry is on a journey that he isn’t at the end of yet, but I think that he realises that too. I think that he was always going to leave the royal family and that Meghan didn’t cause what’s happened, she was just the catalyst for it. I think that he’s been scapegoated and an afterthought within his nuclear family and I don’t blame him for being angry. I think that he means well and is essentially good. And I don’t think that anyone who’s read the whole book would be able to disagree.

More than anything I think it’s clear that the British Royal Family is no longer fit for purpose; the way they live, bring up their children, pay their members for work and demand unrealistic levels of protocol and formality is no longer working in the 21st century. These people need purpose and lives beyond the crown and those on the edges of the heir shouldn’t have to live their lives in service of the their. Realistically H and M could have worked as royals and had private interests, the RF chose not to bend to help them live fulfilling lives because of its own, outdated reasons.

he barely has any memories of his mother?
how is that normal?

Erm... no!

and it turns out they are just as fallible and dysfunctional as most of us Who ever thought otherwise.

100% this.

I agree with everything you wrote.

And how could you not hate the media if your mother was literally chased in a tunnel by them to her death?

I think there isn't enough compassion for Harry.

There’s Harry’s truth and there is Charles’s truth and the rest of the royal’s truth and the real truth lies somewhere in between. No one here knows what it is like to live under those exceptional circumstances and with that kind of weight lying on your shoulders. They are not a normal family by any means. We can speculate all we want but no one really knows who is lying and who is not. Ts is clear though that the royal family needs to move in to 2023. Look at how other European royals behave act and are allowed to behave. It’s very different.

“Once the dust has settled we shall all see this panto, complete with its attendant bits of interview, for what it is: the anguished exclamation of a not terribly bright young man who got the wrong end of a not very clean stick.”

(Jeremy Paxman)

Thank you. They also have made a bad job against the criticism if that is the goal… the cognitive dissonance.

In case you missed it, his mother died because she didn't wear a seat belt in a car driven by a drunk.
The person who did, survived.

Great to see a balanced thread that isn’t non stop “BUT HE HATES THE MEDIA DO WHY DOES THE KEEP TALKING TO THEM?!” “HOW DARE HE DO THIS?!” (When he has done absolutely zero to the posters personally) and “I HATE MEGHAN SHE IS SO AMERICAN AND THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT HER I JUST DONT LIKE” (clue, it’s probably something about her appearance)

long may it continue

Another couple of things I’d love to know if there’s more context on are the page boy party and the Easter gifts.

Do I have to imagine Kate wandering around crying out, ‘the page boys, a party for the little pages’ like a modern day Lady MacBeth and William exclaiming, ‘an Easter gift, my country for an Easter gift’. Or are these things explained?

lovely victim blaming there @hotpotlover

and why was she in a car being driven at speed through Paris? Oh that’s right - she was utterly hounded - have you ever seen any of the footage of the media “papping” Diana? It’s horrific.

It's the memoir of someone who throughout his life has only had approving nods and has not had the benefit of someone saying ' don't do that cos you will look like a complete dick'. Hence it is a bizarre collection of nonsense!

Nope, not explain. Literally one line saying that apparently W&K were upset H hadn't given them Easter gifts. Apparently Charles is very big on Easter gifts.

Nothing at all on the page boy party (or I missed it if there was).

Yeah except the car crashed because it was being chased. Seriously 🙄 ever heard root cause analysis??

I agree with you OP. It was very clear to me, as someone who worked in the media back when Diana was alive, that the palace were up to their old tricks of briefing against their own. They don’t seem to have learnt anything from the Diana situation. I do believe that Charles could have reverted to his old MO, he’s very insecure. Better management by the palace could have avoided the whole situation.

However I think H & M haven’t always had the best advice and made some poor choices. Although I found the OW interview interesting and it was nothing like what the “deranged” said it was, I still don’t think it was a good idea. Personally I only watched it because everyone I knew was discussing it and I couldn’t contribute.

You know what else? If she’d been at home caring for her children instead of galavanting around with her billionaire boyfriend she wouldn’t have been such a target. People have responsibility for their own actions as well, something Harry seems not to have learned. Much easier to blame ‘the media’ for everything.

Do you think people are only able to read one book a year or something? I started it yesterday and I'm already halfway through. And I have my next 3 books linked up ready to read.

Also, I presume you have a degree, a Masters and are a Doctor in something. It makes me sick that people continually insult others if they don't happen to have the brain of Einstein. I left school at 15 with barely an exam to my name so there you go... do you want to insult me ?

Did he mention this bird shooting incident in the book?

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/01/prince-harry-should-settle-bird-shooting-mystery-in-memoirs-say-campaigners

Meghan, are you the OP?

Great post. Well balanced and succinct.

Police protection officers are trained to drive fast. HP, untrained, drove approximately one hundred and twenty mph and didn’t tell anyone to buckle up. He wasn’t a chauffeur. He winked at the paparazzi before they left. He may have also tipped them off. He was drunk.

So you missed the reason that the car was speeding and took the route through the tunnel was to get away from paparazzi.

Oh and they could have remained at the ritz for the night. No one needed to be in the car.

The car was speeding - about 60 to 68 mph - because the driver made a poor decision to speed off while being chased by the paps. Princess Diana had been chased by the paps for more than a decade without crashing. The poor decision was due to drink. Drink also meant that the driver's reaction times and his judgement of speed/distance were impaired due to being drunk. Diana was not wearing a seatbelt.

There were three causal factors - paps, drunk driver, lack of seatbelt. That's not victim blaming, it's just a fact.

Who can say for sure that, had there been no paps, there would have been no crash? When the driver is still drunk, making poor decisions and unable to properly judge speed and distance.