Prince Harry felt ‘unloved’ & ‘underappreciated’ when he was ‘relegated’ to staff quarters at Christmas, says his book
PRINCE Harry once admitted he felt “unloved” and “underappreciated” during a royal family Christmas at Sandringham.
The Duke of Sussex had just returned from an expedition to the South Pole in 2013 but was “relegated” to staff quarters when he arrived home.
Prince Harry recalled what happened in his bombshell Spare memoir which was released earlier this year.
He wrote: “I went directly from the South Pole to Sandringham. Christmas with the family.
“Hotel Granny was full that year, overrun by family, so I was given a mini room in a narrow back corridor, among the offices of Palace staff.
“I’d never stayed there before.
“I’d rarely even set foot there before. (Not so unusual; all Granny’s residences are vast—it would take a lifetime to see every nook and cranny.)
“I liked the notion of seeing and exploring uncharted territory—I was a grizzled polar explorer, after all!—but I also felt a bit unappreciated.
“A bit unloved. Relegated to the hinterlands.”
Prince Harry said that he told himself “to make the best of it” and to “use this time to protect the serenity” he’d achieved at the Pole.
The royal had trekked for three weeks to the South Pole with 13 injured service personnel as part of the Walking With The Wounded charity.
The expedition spanned 200 miles and saw the team battling temperatures as low as -45C as they pulled arctic sledges that weighed 70kg.
Ed Parker, the expedition’s director and co-founder of the Walking With The Wounded charity that organised the challenge, said: “Our aim was to show that, despite injury, young men and women from our armed forces can still achieve great things.”
Every year, the royals flock to Sandringham to spend the festive period as a family.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last spent Christmas with the royal family at Sandringham in 2018 before their acrimonious move to the US.
And it’s been claimed the couple haven’t been invited to the UK to celebrate the holidays – despite a source telling The Sunday Times that the Sussexes would be open to Christmas with the Royals.