Thread by @katharinehorgan

I have so much to say and I’m only at chapter six. But I’ll start with why I’m saying anything and it’s because I, unlike many people, am qualified to speak on this. Children with dead mothers are rare. It doesn’t (thankfully) happen to many children.

Just look at this chart by @MonaChalabi. Harry and I both lost our mothers down at the end of the chart where you need to squint to even see the purple bar. The only person I knew with a dead mother when I was seven? My brother. My dad still had both his parents.

That is after all the natural order of things. But can any of you understand what that is like? You may use your imaginations and conjure up some sympathy. But I read this book and think “oh god that happened to me too”.

Not the palaces or the footmen, that stuff is fairly singular. But I’ve put it down now as Harry has just commented on being sent back to boarding school miles away from his already emotionally distant father who was struggling with parenthood even before single parenthood began.

That is a sentence that could have been plucked right from my own therapy sessions. That, in near perfect mirror image (minus some posh public school frippery) is exactly what happened to me.

#SparebyPrinceHarry has reminded me of something I realised during a therapy session. When you’re having a cruel and unusual childhood you don’t know it. Everyone tells you it is normal. So besides the trauma and processing you need to do as an adult is quite simply surprise.

You’re surprised to learn that was your every day normality is for others the sort of stuff that fills books, bafta nominated “gritty” films and Eastenders wildest plot lines. I was just having a childhood. I didn’t know you were all having different ones.

This book is a desperate plea from a little boy for everyone to understand what he went through and my heart breaks for him a bit as most people simply won’t get it. They can’t get it. It’s not getable for the vast majority of people.

I can add my voice to the chorus and say simply that I get it, or most of it at least. And my takeaway? However he chooses to rebuild his life and find happiness and love and a feeling of safety is his own business. Just as mine is my business.

And I will close simply with this quote from @ANNELAMOTT. There are people I’m sure who wish I’d be silent about my experiences, and I won’t. On a much much smaller stage. But I defend the right of Harry on his larger stage to tell his story. They all should have behaved better.