Harry’s squabbles over parking spots… and his complaint that he was ‘half buried’ in his palace flat: Spare reveals how he turns mundane irritations into slights Duke harbours for decades
- Harry was ‘assigned’ apartment ‘in the semi-basement’ by Charles and Camilla
- The prince recounts how a friend said that it reminded him of a badger’s set
- Neighbour was ‘very fond’ of parking Land Rover Discovery in front of windows
One of the most jaw-dropping aspects of Spare is not Harry’s fights with his brother or warblings about his frost-bitten appendage – but how he turns the most mundane irritations into slights he has harboured for decades.
From rows over parking spaces to how he didn’t have enough light in his apartment, nothing is too insignificant for material in his lucrative tome.
One such section concerns his living arrangements when the prince first moved into Kensington Palace.
Harry was ‘assigned’ an apartment ‘in the semi-basement of the palace’ by Charles and Camilla. ‘In other words, half buried,’ he complains.
From rows over parking spaces to how he didn’t have enough light in his apartment, nothing is too insignificant for material in his lucrative tome
It had three tall windows, he says, ‘but they let in little light so the difference between sunrise, sunset and noon… was symbolic, to say the least.’ This was made even worse by a neighbour – Mr R. Sources speculate that it could be Charles Richards, an adviser to the Queen at the time.
Mr R was apparently ‘very fond’ of parking his gigantic grey Land Rover Discovery in front of the windows and ‘blocking out all light’.
In astonishing detail, Harry recalls he wrote to Mr R asking him ‘politely to move a few inches the position of his car’. He adds: ‘He counterattacked with an answer in which he sent me to fry asparagus.’ This is a phrase used in Spain to tell someone to go away and may be worded differently in the book’s English language version.
Harry goes on to laboriously accuse Mr R of asking his grandmother to tell him to stop complaining.
The Queen never did speak to him, he says, but the incident was added to Harry’s pyre of perceived slights.
One of the most jaw-dropping aspects of Spare is not Harry’s fights with his brother or warblings about his frost-bitten appendage – but how he turns the most mundane irritations into slights he has harboured for decades
He later decided not to fight it any more, writing the ‘semi-darkness of the apartment at noon matched my state of mind’ and was a place that ‘proved my true place in the ranks’.
But the prince then recounts how a friend said it reminded him of a badger’s set.
They were having a drink when suddenly a sheet appeared outside his window from above.
Someone started to shake it and a ‘waterfall’ of what appeared to be glitter or confetti began to fall.
Harry said it was actually Mrs R’s hair – she had it cut at home and collected the waste in a sheet then shook it out of her window.
As Harry had his open, hair flew into his flat, forcing the prince and his friend to cough and pick it off their tongues.
Harry spent days writing a letter to Mrs R in his head but decided he was being unfair as she had no idea ‘she was filling the house with her hair’.
But Harry later concluded he was also angry as she was ‘guilty of a traffic violation even more inexcusable than her husband’ – parking her car in a spot once used by his late mother.
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