Unlikely royal with a very similar timeline to Prince Harry – including the loss of a parent, finding solace in the army then being forced to abandon his duties writes TESSA DUNLOP

We’ve been promised full-blown royal fanfare for this very special World War Two anniversary. 

Bunting is to line the corridors of Buckingham Palace and a tea party for the final few veterans still alive will be the focus of bank holiday Monday.

With the Royal Family out in force to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day on May 5, including a service at Westminster Abbey and a balcony appearance with a fly past, bear in mind the family’s own enduring private grief. 

The late Queen, who so gallantly ties us back to the Blitz and her own wartime service, is gone but her stalwart cousin, HRH the Duke of Kent, very much remains.

Now in his 90th year, I met the Duke at home in Wren House – comfortable in a checked shirt, a handsome cane by his side – he spoke openly about the trauma that scorched his young life and defined his adulthood: the sudden death of his father, HRH Prince George the Duke of Kent, brother of King George VI, and the last royal to die on active service when a Sunderland flying boat mysterious crashed in the Highlands of Scotland in August 1942. 

Overnight, the current duke joined legions of British children left without a father. 

‘I do remember him,’ he sighs, ‘but I can’t give you examples.’ Prince Edward, the new Duke of Kent, was just six years old.

It is the duke’s private secretary who quietly muses on the parallels between HRH’s life and Prince Harry’s. 

The late Duke of Kent with his wife and son, Prince Edward, the current Duke of Kent,  in the garden of his country home Coppins in Iver, Buckinghamshire, in 1937

Prince Harry sitting on his late mother’s lap during their summer holiday in Palma, Spain

The Duke of Kent and Prince Harry suffered the loss of a parent very young, and both were forced to abandon operational duties because of their royal status

Both experienced the loss of a parent very young, both found structure and purpose in the Army and both were forced to abandon operational duties because of their royal status. 

The Duke of Kent was withdrawn from Northern Ireland after just three weeks on the ground, an experience he found ‘embarrassing’. Harry’s devastation when his tour was cut short in Afghanistan is also well known.

Unlike the absent prince, the duke’s subsequent post-army life has been forged in service to his country – with 20 years in the Royal Scots Greys followed by steadfast dedication to royal duties, in particular the role of commemoration. 

His title and name pepper memorials that span the globe and cross the country. 

He marvels at the nature of this work: ‘I think it is a matter of remembering what sacrifice means. One of the things that always struck me going around those cemeteries is that many of them had special inscriptions put in by the families, a personal touch.’

Travel to the memorial cross, Eagle’s Rock, on the lip of the North Sea, where the fated flying boat inexplicably crashed in 1942 and it is hard not to think of the young, vulnerable, fatherless prince. 

The duke first made the pilgrimage there as a teenager with his mother Princess Marina of Greece, and has regularly visited the remote spot throughout his life. Small wonder he finds war graves ‘absolutely heartbreaking to look at’. He knows what they really mean.

The day I visited Eagle’s Rock, it happened to be Prince Harry’s 40th birthday and I mused over yet more parallels between the two dukes. 

Yes, Harry regrettably absconded from royal duties in 2020. We know all too well about the damage the Sussexes have wreaked on the royal brand, but that should not detract from the prince’s vital work on the commemorative circuit.

Prince Harry with a special birthday message from the Royal Family on his 40th birthday

When he was still a full-time working royal, like his cousin the Duke of Kent, Harry stood out – a man who understood pain, he was a beacon of solace for families who had lost loved ones 

Prince Harry, salutes after laying cross of remembrance in memory of his friend Lance Corporal of Horse Jonathan Woodgate

Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Kent Service for The Order of St Michael and St George at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2008

The Duke of Kent was withdrawn from Northern Ireland after just three weeks on the ground, an experience he found ‘embarrassing’. Harry’s devastation when his tour was cut short in Afghanistan is also well known

Author Tessa Dunlop travelled to the memorial cross, Eagle’s Rock, on the lip of the North Sea

When he was still a full-time working royal, like his cousin the Duke of Kent, Harry stood out – a man who understood pain, he was a beacon of solace for those families who had lost loved ones in more recent conflicts. 

Writing a book about 100 British monuments to war, I have spoken to both wives and mothers whose husbands and sons were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They speak warmly of Harry.

Helen Lewis, whose son Lieutenant Aaron Lewis died in Afghanistan in 2008, recalls Harry’s empathy and ability to connect. 

With her own pain still very raw three years after losing Aaron, it was at the opening of the Lynyrd Garden of Remembrance at Wootton Bassett that she first talked to Harry. 

She said: ‘We were told the Prince wanted to meet us in private. When he walked in we stood up and he said, ‘Sit down, it is me that should be standing up’. 

‘He asked us how we were coping, it was just like sitting and chatting to one of Aaron’s friends.’

Harry connected with Mrs Lewis and at later engagements always looked out for her grandson Harrison, their cute exchanges providing much needed moments of levity. 

‘Every year they would salute each other. And then, the first time we met him with Meghan, he told Harrison something special had happened. He’d had a baby, Archie Harrison,’ Mrs Lewis smiles. 

Nothing will bring Aaron back but she liked what she saw in the prince. ‘You speak as you find,’ she says. Helen has set up a foundation in her late son’s name to help other families at such a difficult time.

In those difficult early years, he was a vital human stitch in the commemorative calendar.

Today, the Royal Family have to make do without Harry – the VE Day extravaganza a reminder of their continued symbolic importance in our country’s rich military story. 

Britain’s servicemen and women, veterans and their families rely on a diminishing band of royals to provide vital leadership in the act of remembrance, both now and then. 

For as the Duke of Kent well knows, freedom is not free.

• Lest We Forget, War And Peace In 100 British Monuments by Tessa Dunlop is out now

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk