Prince Harry and the value of silence

DURING the early stages of my father’s Alzheimer’s, when he still had lucid moments, I apologised to him for writing an autobiography many years earlier in which I flung open the gates of our troubled family life. He was already talking less at that point, but his eyes told me he understood.

I thought of that moment when I read that Prince Harry, in his new memoir, wrote about his father, King Charles III, getting between his battling sons and saying, “Please, boys, don’t make my final years a misery.”

Time is an unpredictable thing. What will someone’s last memory be? I had the gift of time with my father, which allowed me to apologise, even though a disease hovered between us and clouded our communication. King Charles’ words reveal a man who is aware of his mortality, and would like his offspring to be aware of it as well.