© Photo: ITVPrince William and Prince Harry have opened up at length about their late mother Diana, Princess of Wales in a new documentary, Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy. The programme, which aired on ITV on Monday night, gives viewers a candid insight into the brothers' childhood and shows just how much love they have for their mum, and vice versa, and how they've been dealing with their grief.
"This is the first time the two of us have ever spoken about her as a mother," said Harry, 32, who admits he has been burying his pain. "Arguably, probably, a little bit too raw up until this point. It's still raw."
"There's not many days that go by that I don't think of her," added William, 35. "Her 20th anniversary year feels like a good time to remember all the good things about her and hopefully provide a different side that others haven't seen before. We felt incredibly loved, Harry and I, and very grateful that that love still feels there."
© Photo: ITVThe brothers sifted through old childhood photos from albums Diana had made. "Happy memories, big, smiley faces. She smothered us with love, that's for sure," said Harry.
Pointing to a picture of a young Diana holding William as a toddler, William told Harry: "Believe it or not you and I are both in this photograph. You are in the tummy."
© Photo: Getty ImagesWilliam and Harry praised the People's Princess, who was simply Mum to them. "To myself and William, she was just the best mother ever," said Harry. "She would just engulf you and squeeze you as tight as possible and being as short as I was then, there was no escape, you were there for as long as she wanted to hold you. Even talking about it now, I can feel the hugs that she used to give us.
"I miss that feeling, I miss having that mother to give you those hugs and that compassion that everyone needs. Behind closed doors, she was a very loving, caring mother and an incredibly funny person. I think she lived a lot of her life, especially in private, through us and I think that childish fun element really came out when she was spending time with us."
© Photo: PAHer sense of fun was clear as a parent. "Our mother was a total kid through and through," said Harry. "When everybody says to me, so she was fun, give us an example, all I can hear is her laugh in my head, and that sort of crazy laugh where there was just pure happiness shown on her face.
"One of her mottos to me was, 'You can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught.' She was one of the naughtiest parents. She would come and watch us play football and, you know, smuggle sweets into our socks."
© Photo: ITVWilliam recalled how his mother often liked to embarrass him, particularly in his teenage years. One time he came home from school, only to find three stunning supermodels waiting for him.
"There's a couple of memories I have that are particularly funny," said the Prince. "Just outside this room where we are now, she organised, when I came home from school… to have Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell waiting at the top of the stairs. I was probably a 12 or 13-year-old boy who had posters of them on his wall."
William remembers how he turned red with embarrassment and almost fell down the stairs on his way up. "I was completely and utterly sort of awestruck," he said.
© Photo: Getty ImagesHarry has one question for his mother. "One thing I would love to ask her now," said Harry, smiling. "I genuinely think she got satisfaction out of dressing myself and William up in the most bizarre outfits – normally matching. It was weird shorts and little shiny shoes with the old clip on. Looking back at the photos it just makes me laugh and I think, 'How could you do that to us?'
"And funnily enough we got to the age when William would turn around and go, 'This is ridiculous, I'm the older brother. Why do I have to be dressed the same as him?' And I'm sort of thinking, 'Hang on a second, if you're going to dress differently, I'm not going to be the only person dressed like this. This is ridiculous!'"
Harry, who has been dating Suits actress Meghan Markle for one year, added: "I like to think she had great fun dressing us up, I'm sure that wasn't it, but I sure as hell am going to dress my kids up the same way."
© Photo: ITVDespite the constant media and paparazzi attention, Harry said Diana's priority was to give her sons as normal a childhood as possible.
"My mother cherished those moments of privacy and being able to be that mother rather than the Princess of Wales. She made the decision that no matter what, despite all the difficulties of growing up in that limelight and on that stage, she was going to ensure that both of us had as normal life as possible," said Harry.
"And if that means taking us for a burger every now and then or sneaking us into the cinema, or driving through the country lanes with the roof down in her old school BMW to listen to Enya I think it was... part of her being a mum."
© Photo: ITVIn a particularly poignant moment, the Princes recalled the last time they spoke to their mum, which happened on the day that she died.
William and Harry were enjoying their summer holiday at Balmoral with Prince Charles and the Queen when Diana phoned them for the final time from Paris, where she was staying with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed. The brothers shared their regret at not speaking to their mother for longer.
"If I'd known now obviously what was going to happen I wouldn't have been so blasé about it and everything else but that phone call sticks in my mind quite heavily," said William.
"Looking back on it now it's incredibly hard," said Harry. "I have to sort of deal with that for the rest my life. Not knowing that was the last time I was going to speak with my mum and how differently that conversation would have panned out if I had even the slightest inkling that her life was going to be taken that night."
© Photo: ITVHarry revealed that he has only cried about his mum twice – once at her private funeral at Althorp House, her family home, and one other time.
"The first time I cried was at the funeral on the island," he said. "And only since then, maybe once more. There's a lot of grief that still needs to be… to be let out. I was so young, I grew up thinking that not having a mum was normal. I think it was a classic case of, don't let yourself think about your mum and the grief and the hurt that comes with it, because it's never going to bring her back and it's only going to make you more sad.
"People deal with grief in different ways and my way of dealing with it was basically shutting it out, locking it out. The ten years I was in the army, I sort of dug my head in the sand. It was just white noise."
© Photo: ITVSpeaking about his grief, William admitted: "There's nothing like it in the world, there really isn't. It's like an earthquake's just run through the house, through your life and everything. Your mind is completely split. And it took me a while for it to actually sink in."
The future King, who was 15 at the time of Diana's death, added: "My heart goes out to all the people who have lost all their loved ones in the world. It does connect you in a very sad club that you don't want to be a member of, but you do all have a shared pain you can immediately understand and see in anyone when you meet them."
© Photo: Getty ImagesDiana's spirit has lived on, and for William, he felt her presence on his wedding day in April 2011. "When it came to the wedding, I did really feel that she was there. There are times when you look to someone or something for strength and I very much felt she was there for me," said the Prince.
© Photo: Getty ImagesWilliam makes sure that his children Prince George, four, and Princess Charlotte, two, know they had another grandmother. On keeping her memory alive, he said: "I think constantly talking about granny Diana. We've got more photos up around the house now of her. It's hard because Catherine didn't know her so she can't really provide that level of detail.
I do regularly bring George and Charlotte to bed and talk about her. Just try to remind them there are two grandmas, were two grandmas in their lives and it's important they know who she was and she existed."
Laughing, he added: "She'd be a nightmare grandma, absolute nightmare. She'd love the children to bits, but she'd be an absolute nightmare. She'd come and go, she'd probably come at bath time, cause an amazing amount of sea and bubbles and bathwater all over the place and then leave."
