‘We came up with the name Sentebale, which means “Forget-me-not” in Sesotho, the language of Lesotho,’ he explained. ‘This charity is a way in which Prince Seeiso and I can remember our mothers who both worked with vulnerable children and people affected by Aids. I really feel that by doing this I can follow in my mother’s footsteps and keep her legacy alive.’
Sentebale was formally launched in April 2006, the same month that Harry graduated from Sandhurst, and the following month, William and Harry announced the founding of the Princes’ Charities Forum as a way of bringing all their developing and varied charitable interests under one single brotherly umbrella.
Prince Charles had started his immensely successful Prince’s Trust with the £7,500 severance pay that he received on leaving the Royal Navy. Now as they entered adult life his sons decided to follow his example – and it does not seem to have occurred to either of them in 2006 that they should not work together. They were brothers. Brotherliness had fundamentally shaped their lives and visions at this age – it was their joint identity that the outside world found very charming.
They had always played as a pair. Now they got philanthropic as a pair, funding their forum with what was described as ‘a six-figure sum’ from their personal fortunes – largely the money left them by their mother. Both their father and mother, explained William, had instilled in them ‘from the word go’ that with their great privileges in life went ‘an absolute responsibility to give back’.
The tenth anniversary of Diana’s death was approaching, and it was the perfect opportunity for her sons both to remember their mother and to raise funds for the causes that she and Charles had championed – as well as one special brotherly cause of their own. Alongside help for disadvantaged young people in memory of Diana, and support for climate change initiatives in homage to Charles, William and Harry agreed that a final third of the money they raised should go to the armed forces.
On the face of it, war was a curious third corner to their charitable triangle: helping the young, saving the planet – and killing people. But the brothers were thinking of veterans and the wounded. They did not say it – perhaps they did not even realise it – but the comradeship and parental authority of the armed forces had given both brothers more of a family life than their own parents ever had.
William and Harry raised £1.2 million for their three causes, spread over eight charities, in a Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium on 1 July 2007. It would have been her forty-sixth birthday.
‘It’s a little bit funny, this feelin’ inside’ – Elton John sat down at the piano to kick off the proceedings with his hit ‘Your Song’ in front of a giant tableau of Mario Testino’s haunting black and white photographs of Diana that had been beamed onto the stage backdrop. Then Tom Jones demonstrated that he could still rock at the age of sixty-seven, getting the sixty thousand strong crowd to their feet, including both the princes and their largely female companions in the royal box – ‘You don’t have to be rich to be my girl!’ Maybe the lyrics meant something special to Kate Middleton, who was appearing in public with William that day for the first time following their three-month break – and hence was the main focus that afternoon of all the telephoto lenses in the press enclosure.
Duran Duran, Status Quo and Kanye West – the line-up of performers at Wembley that day showed the pulling power of Diana’s name that now her sons had inherited. The money kept rolling in, and in September 2009 would enable the formal establishment and launching of the brothers’ own joint charitable organisation – the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry.
‘We feel passionately,’ said William at the time, ‘that working closely together with those who contribute to our foundation, we can help to make a long-lasting and tangible difference.’
‘We are both massively excited,’ echoed Harry. That summer of 2009 had seen the brothers living together for what would prove to be the last time – in a rented cottage close to RAF Shawbury in Shropshire where they were both training for their licences on Lynx helicopters at the Defence Helicopter Flying School. Aged twenty-seven and twenty-four, the two brothers were still on the very best of terms – and on the best of form in front of the cameras.
‘Bearing in mind I cook – I feed him every day – I think he’s done very well,’ said William jokingly – or half-jokingly. ‘Harry does do washing-up, but then he leaves most of it in the sink and then I come back in the morning and I have to wash it up … I do a fair bit of tidying up after him. He snores a lot too. He keeps me up all night long.’
The interview had been organised by PR man Miguel Head, who was now working directly with the brothers. Following his impressive handling of Harry’s time in Afghanistan, Head had been lured away from the Ministry of Defence by William and Harry to become their first joint press secretary – it was another example of the personal web of partnerships that they were developing together.
‘Oh God,’ responded Harry, ‘they’ll think we
