'Tell us about her' Harry and William grill charity chiefs about Diana on memorial visit
PRINCE Harry grilled his late mother’s favourite charity chiefs today by pleading: “Tell me a story about my mum”.
Prince William and Prince Harry visit Diana's memorial garden
Along with his brother William and his wife Kate, Harry prompted a round of reminiscences about the woman they all missed so much as they visited the White Garden - a memorial space within the existing sunken garden at Kensington Palace that has been decorated with white foliage and flowers to mark 20 years since her tragic death.
The Princes and Kate were meeting representatives of the eight bodies closest to Diana’s heart in the gardens of her former home.
Sheltering under umbrellas, they admired white roses, lilies, gladioli and cosmos all planted to represent Diana’s life, style and image.
The garden has been open to the public since Spring, and while people will be able to visit until September, it was closed while the Princes commemorated the anniversary.
Diana would regularly stop for a chat with the gardeners, asking about the ever-changing floral displays.
Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate visited Princess Diana's memorial garden today
She loved dancing, she was a fantastic dancer
And on Wednesday the Royals met with the head gardener Sean Harkin and Graham Dillamore, who knew the Princess when he worked there 30 years previously.
English National Ballet director Tamara Rojo told them their mother’s fundraising made sure many hit productions were possible, adding: “That’s something we celebrate.”
William said: “She loved dancing, she was a fantastic dancer.
“We’ve been going through her music collection recƒently and there’s some quite eclectic stuff in there. She was elated by the skill.”
“We’ve got plenty of pictures. I remember her showing me ballet shoes she had been given and she was so proud of them."
Kate, 35, chipped in that two-year-old Princess Charlotte is now learning to dance, adding: “She absolutely loves it.”
Told ENB runs a My First Ballet programme, of short classic shows, William said: “We will definitely have to come.”
Meeting Great Ormond Street Hospital representatives, he recalled how his mother stayed with him there when, aged nine, he had 24 stitches after a golfing accident.
“I got looked after extremely well,” he said.
Flowers, photos and other souvenirs left as a tribute to Princess Diana
Pausing to speak to Cally Palmer, chief executive of the Royal Marsden Hospital, Diana’s oldest son said she was” so uplifted” by meeting patients and “trying to cheer them up”.
Told by Cally he was “so like her” in manner, he added: “We try to follow her example in being ourselves and listening.
"It’s amazing what listening can do and she was a good listener.”
He also apologised to charity staff for the rainy weather, joking stoically: “I guess it’s a garden, it needs the rain.”
Kenneth Rutherford, cofounder of the Landmine Survivors Network, spent three extraordinary days with Diana in Bosnia shortly before she died.
"She was just most remarkable women, the way she absorbed the pain of the survivors and the victims."