During my brother’s first summer, my mum put his pram outside in the garden so his six-month-old lungs could soak up some of that lovely fresh Perthshire air.
Suddenly, a terrible wailing ensued, before I, allegedly, ran indoors and declared: “I DIDN’T BITE THE BABY.”
Later, I broke his prized kite because I needed the wood to make drumsticks.
On family camping holidays, my parents had to fashion sleeping bags, biscuit tins and any available ballast into a temporary ‘no man’s land’ on the back seat of our Hillman Avenger so the two of us couldn’t knock lumps out of one another all the way up the A9.
I’m just getting these stories out now, in case some quirk of fate bumps me up the line of succession and my brother feels the need to share his “truth”.
Because stupid sibling squabbles would appear to hold a much deeper significance when the siblings’ blood is blue.
Prince Harry fight claims – what a fall from grace
#ShutUpHarry is trending on Twitter today. I’m not surprised.
Because if I’m this bored by Harry and Meghan, what does it say for the rest of you?
See, the royals were always my guilty pleasure. A strange thing for a card-carrying woke leftie to admit, but who can deny what the heart desires?
My grans liked them, and my liking them too felt like a connection, if that makes any sense.
My dad worked for Princess Di’s mum at the time of THE royal wedding. She was very nice. We got a bit of cake.
I devoured The Crown. I’ll sit and watch lame Diana “documentaries” on YouTube if there’s nothing better on (even though they are all just made from the same footage, spliced in a slightly different order).
And Harry was my favourite.
He went to Afghanistan. He started the Invictus Games. For a while there, he was hot.
I liked Meghan too. She was a beautiful bride. The wedding ceremony was delightfully bonkers. He deserved a happy ending.
You don’t need me to remind you that’s not how it turned out.
It’s a living, I suppose
You don’t need me to remind you because they spilled their guts to Oprah in a tell-all interview in March 2021.
And you don’t need me to remind you because they’ve just told it all again in a six-part series for Netflix, laying out their beef with Harry’s family and the media in between soft-focus shots of Meghan feeding the chickens.
You don’t need me to remind you because you’ve probably seen the trailer from yet another documentary, this one due to air on ITV on Sunday night.
And you don’t need me to remind you because the first excerpts from Harry’s tell-all memoir, Spare, have started dripping into the very media they purport to distrust every bit as much as the royal family.
The book isn’t out until Tuesday. But a leak to the Guardian reveals Prince Harry and his brother had a fight one time and William ripped his necklace.
Oh grow up and get over yourself, you silly, over-privileged tit.
We know what you’re against, now show us what you’re for
There’s one silver lining, I suppose.
If these are the blockbuster revelations they’re choosing to release in order to grab the public’s attention, they must be getting close to the bottom of the barrel.
And then what?
I don’t doubt Harry and Meghan faced problems within the royal institution.
I know they were treated unfairly by the media. You only have to look at the deranged ramblings of Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan for evidence of that.
And honestly, for all the jewels and fancy houses, I wouldn’t have wanted the life they’ve left behind either.
But they got out. Two years ago. And yet it’s still the thing defining them.
Sooner or later they are going to have to either go away and get on with their lives in peace and some semblance of privacy. Or they are going to have to do something useful with this new-found freedom.
But that will mean them showing us what they stand for, not what they stand against.
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