Ahead of new documentary William and Harry: The Unseen Photos, Mirror photographers Ian Lloyd, Kent Gavin and Ian Vogler look back over the most impactful images they’ve taken of the royal family
William & Harry: The Unseen Photos teased in trailer
Princes William and Harry are the most photographed royal brothers in history.
Yet only a few of the hundreds of thousands of images taken of the princes are actually seen by the public.
Most remain unseen – filed away by news organisations or on photographers’ hard drives – maybe emerging for the odd retrospective.
Now a new documentary, William and Harry: The Unseen Photos released in UK cinemas this week, features some of these forgotten images – together with personal insights from the photographers who took them.
A gallery of images document their early childhood, the tensions during their parents’ divorce, the excesses of the paparazzi, the death of Princess Diana, the princes’ growing dislike of intrusive media coverage and their rift today.
Here, The Mirror ’s now retired royal photographer Kent Gavin, and photographer and author Ian Lloyd, whose images have appeared in The Mirror – both contributors to the film – reflect on William and Harry’s life in pictures.
Royal photographer and author Ian Lloyd
One thing that William and Harry do agree on is both of them go to great lengths to protect their families from the paparazzi.
When Diana came along, the world fell in love with her. Photographers were out in force whenever she appeared.
But William and Harry grew to hate them.
I remember seeing William at Smith’s Lawn polo ground in the front passenger seat of his father’s Aston Martin. The minute he saw the cameras he ducked his head, using his hair as a shield to hide his face, just as the young Diana had. He didn’t like being the pin-up prince and blushed easily.
When he joined the family at the Queen Mother’s birthday appearance at the gates of Clarence House, girls started screaming, “We love you William,” much to his embarrassment, and to the amusement of his brother – who always pulled his leg about it.
Harry was a different kettle of fish – seemingly unfazed by the cameras. I was there for his first and last day at Eton College and he joked and waved to the press.
When he started at Eton, William, on the other hand, looked tense as any 13-year-old might, faced with a press pack of 150 journalists and snappers, until Diana leant forward and joked to make him smile. That’s why, if George goes to Eton next year, William will, almost certainly, only allow one photographer and maybe a single film crew.
But the real problem was the paparazzi, who were hell bent on getting a shot of the boys’ mother Princess Diana at any cost.
It took her tragic death on August 31 1997, aged 36, to begin to change press behaviour, as editors stopped using the clearly snooped photos.
Harry continued to have his brother’s back as they entered their early 20s.
William was still the pin-up prince, while Harry remained the cheeky, irrepressible one, always there to josh William out of his awkwardness.
That was apparent to me at the 2004 society wedding of Lady Tamara Grosvenor, daughter of the Duke of Westminster, to Edward van Cutsem, at Chester Cathedral. Harry once again teased William when the odd embarrassingly loud scream could be heard from royal fans.
In those days, the princes were mutually dependent.
When I went to Brize Norton in 2008 to see Prince Harry return from Afghanistan, after news of his deployment was leaked by overseas media, he arrived with a face like thunder. It wasn’t the British press that had messed up the security embargo but, to him, we were tarred with the same brush.
William was there to meet his brother and carry his equipment to their dad’s car. He, too, looked furious with us and backed his brother all the way.
Looking back at my photos with hindsight, I can now see one or two tell-tale signs that things weren’t going that well between the brothers. When they posed for photos at RAF Shawbury in 2009, where they were both training to be helicopter pilots, they appeared to be going through the motions.
At William’s wedding to Kate Middleton in April 2011, Harry looked quite fed up when I saw him. In his autobiography Spare, Harry says he wasn’t happy wearing his uncomfortable Blues and Royal uniform. The other reason he looked glum on the way back may be that he realised their lives were now on separate trajectories.
Marriage to Meghan Markle has given Harry the family unit he so craved, but has also sounded the death knell for his relationship with his brother, which now seems beyond repair.
Like many other photographers who have seen William and Harry at close quarters over the years, I can’t help feeling they may look back through their photo albums, to a time when they were the best of friends, and wonder just what has happened.
The Mirror’s retired royal photographer Kent Gavin says:
William and Harry have always been chalk and cheese, from the minute they were born. Harry, the boisterous one, always on the go. And William the level-headed one from day one.
Diana had asked for me personally to cover William’s christening – I was in Marbella when I got the call and had a few extra pints that night to celebrate!
Diana and I worked together for 18 years, and knew each other on a first name basis. The first pictures I took of her were in Knightsbridge when the rumours were just starting to circulate of a romance between her and the then-Prince of Wales.
Whenever the royal family would holiday abroad, the media frenzy would follow them everywhere. Their trip to Nevis in the West Indies was dogged by the world’s press, to the point where her personal protection officer Ken Wharfe sought me out in the hotel for a drink and asked me to speak to the photographers staying there.
We agreed Diana would appear for one photo, then the global press would leave her alone. Sure enough, the following day she appeared in the waves in that bright orange bikini like a Bond Girl – we weren’t expecting that!
Another time she asked for a chat on a plane. She told me the paparazzi – a different kettle of fish to the press pool – were making her life hell. She had been shopping in Harvey Nichols and had jumped in a cab to head home. Just then a pap on a motorbike drew up alongside her taxi and opened her door. “Get your head up, you f****** b****, I’ve got a mortgage to pay,” he snarled at her as she’d jumped into the footwell.
I was asked to Balmoral for a photocall of Charles with his boys playing by the River Dee. These images are so poignant, taken just two weeks before Diana’s death. You can tell how happy and relaxed they were by their open body language.
August 31, 1997 was a dreadful day. I was called into the office in the early hours of the morning to hear that Diana had died in a horrific car crash. I drove to Northolt to cover the arrival of her coffin back on British soil. It was all I could do not to cry.
William’s attitude to photographers changed after his mother’s death. He’d organised a photocall on a farm during his gap year and made a surprise appearance at our hotel bar the night before. I remember him telling us: “I will make sure that my future wife and children will never suffer the way my mother did.”
One thing is for sure: if Diana was still around, her boys would never have fallen out so badly. Charles loves his sons and I hope they can find a way back to reconciliation.
Mirror photographer Ian Vogler says:
The relationship between the boys as children could not be more different from now. Diana’s death changed everything – I remember watching them walking behind their mother’s coffin when they were 15 and 12 and thinking, ‘What a difficult life they’re going to have with this being beamed around the world on live television.’
Back then they couldn’t have been stronger together. You couldn’t imagine them being in a position now where they never speak.
I joined Harry on a 2015 trip to South Africa, before he met Meghan. He was easy-going, teasing the children we met in a classroom and the kids were just chatting to him. He was really natural, down-to-earth, enjoying their company.
When William and Kate got together, Harry seemed delighted. He was like a clown prince, making jokes, entertaining his future sister-in-law. They all got on really well together, there were some really nice moments.
The tension between the princes was most obvious at the Prince of Edinburgh’s funeral. They were there, but they weren’t there. They were together but they weren’t together.
Now it’s like a whole different world. At Harry and Meghan’s wedding, it was the only wedding I’ve been to where I didn’t see the bride! He had arranged the British press in an odd position so we only saw three-quarters of Meghan and not her head.
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