Prince Harry left royal staff 'aghast' after Palace incident that shows 'he hasn't got a clue'
Prince Harry once left a royal protection officer “aghast” with a move one expert says shows he “hasn’t got a clue”. The Duke of Sussex has regularly spoken about his childhood growing up in the public eye.In an interview with Oprah Winfrey after swapping life in the UK for Montecito, California, Harry explained that a “highlight” of his life in the United States was being able to take Prince Archie on bike rides. Harry said it was something he was “never able to do” as a child.It prompted royal expert Charles Ray to recall a moment when Harry stunned bodyguard Ken Wharfe. The former royal staffer was in charge of looking after a young Prince Harry and his older brother William in 1986, while serving as Princess Diana’s bodyguard between 1988 and 1993.Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive podcast he stressed he feels Harry “didn’t have a bad childhood”. Recalling one cheeky moment involving the prince, Ray said: “I remember Ken Wharfe the royal protection officer and Harry would come up to him at various times and he’d say, ‘Oh can I be a policeman today?’ And he’d actually give him a radio and so they would talk to each other when they were at Kensington Palace.“And actually one [day], Ken sort of decided, ‘Actually, I better check in where he is.’ And he was actually across the road, he was slightly older than five or seven, and he had actually gone out of the gates and across the road to a record shop, Ken was aghast at this and had to go and get him.“So this, I’m reined in, I’m a poor child, you know, he hasn’t got a clue what it was like, he really hasn’t.”Wharfe has previously recalled the moment involving a young Harry, admitting he feared he would be sacked after losing the prince. Inspector Wharfe told GB News that Harry had approached him looking to be “entertained” after developing a “sense of boredom”.Wharfe says he set the young prince the task of going to the garage to speak to a chauffeur before receiving another job. He said: “So we did that four or five times, gone to the chef, gone to the flower seller whatever, in the end he said, "can I go down and see Aunt Jane?”The former bodyguard said he checked with Lady Jane Fellowes - Diana’s sister who lived just outside Kensington Palace - and agreed he could go so long as he called on his way back.Wharfe explained: “About 20 minutes later, I rang Jane and said, ‘have you sent Harry back yet?’ She said, ‘I sent him back ten minutes ago’.”Wharfe says it was then a “slight panic” set in. He quickly phoned the young prince who proceeded to explain that he was standing outside Tower Records on Kensington High Street.The policeman added: “It was the quickest run back I had ever done. But anyway, there he was this small kid stood outside Tower Records with my radio.”Tower Records opened in 1984. Its flagship outlet at Piccaddily Circus and its first branch in Kensington were sold to Virgin in 2003, before being renamed Zavvi in 2007. The firm went into administration in 2008 before disappearing from the high street in 2009.
