Prince Harry mimics a baby yawning as he meets the public in Christchurch.
Photo / Pool
Prince Harry mimics a baby yawning as he meets the public in Christchurch.
Photo / Pool
Prince Harry shows all the signs he's ready for fatherhood, says lad-turned-dad Martin Daubney.
There comes a painful time in every lad's life when he wakes up - usually hungover - and realises that maybe the party is over; that living the high life has finally lost its fizz.
For Royal Lad Prince Harry, that sobering moment came some time back. The man once unflatteringly dubbed "the Clown Prince" long ago cleaned up his act, knuckled down as a soldier and mercifully stopped making his mistakes on the front pages of the tabloids while relieved of his clothing.
Prince Harry meets the people of Christchurch.
Photo / Pool
Then on Monday, Harry let slip a telling revelation that was music to the nation's (and no doubt Her Majesty's) ears. Prince Harry announced he was getting broody.
"There come times when you think it's time to settle down," he said. "It would be great to have someone else next to me to share the pressure. Of course, I'd love to have kids right now."
So it seems that Harry is ready for that next, slightly terrifying stage of life: the sometimes painful transition from lad to dad. And as a former lad who's now a dad, I see it in Harry's eyes: I know he's ready. While I would never flatter nor delude myself I even move in the same galaxy as Harry - I'm more runt than Royal - there are none the less certain parallels in our lives.
For eight years I edited the lads' mag Loaded, a debauched hedonist's handbook that celebrated booze, girls, football and other less important things. In a profile piece, I was once, somewhat embarrassingly, crowned The King of the Lads. My magazine crowned "Hazza" our real-life Prince of the Lads; he was "our" Royal, a poster-boy lad whom we and our readers idolised. From barristers to bricklayers, they all adored Hazza the Lad.
Deliciously, Harry was even a real-life Loaded reader, a fact confirmed when he was photographed reading (okay, ogling blonde cover star Jennifer Ellison) our magazine in the Afghan desert while taking a well-earned break on a tour of duty. We continually celebrated Harry's roguish behaviour, and he was a regular fixture in our monthly Platinum Rogues gallery, a top 10 of hard-living A-listers who got caught with their trousers down - and sometimes, with Harry, that was quite literally the case.
Like the Prince, I once found myself on the front page of a tabloid, for allegedly "getting frisky" with George Best's wife Alex, whom we photographed for a cover in February 2004, when the Manchester United legend was still alive. The photoshoot turned into an epic, eight-hour booze-up, and when Alex got home late, George had smashed up their house and her car. He then went on a big old session himself, which saw him arrested after an incident with a hooker in a hotel foyer while wearing a Terry towelling robe. It was tabloid gold, albeit the stuff of nightmares for my long-suffering partner, Diana, whom I'd been with since before my Loaded days (and, miraculously, we're still together now).
Like Harry, I partied hard in Las Vegas - what else does one do there? - although, I drew the line at being photographed nude, leaving that to that month's cover girl, Abi Titmuss. But after a while it becomes exhausting and unfulfilling being King - or Prince - of the Lads. Believe it or not, the novelty of an endless free bar, glamour models, glitzy celebrity parties and jetting around the world does lose its sheen eventually.
The feeling that your own glass is half empty first comes into sharp focus when your closest friends - and in Harry's case, his brother -begin to settle down and have kids. When my three most-loved mates, Andy, Steve and Nige, became fathers in their early thirties in quick succession, they all but dropped from the social scene. For a while I deluded myself they were "squares" - reminding them of this in numerous late-night texts - but, really, it was my life that was lacking and listless.
On rare nights out with them I'd catch sight of the photos of their newborns they now kept in their wallets, and my heart would grow heavy and morose. When I visited them and horsed around with their children, they'd say to me, "You'd make a great dad, Martin." But I didn't want to sacrifice the good times - yet.
Slowly, however, I realised that despite all the tinsel and baubles my life displayed outwardly, my inner life was increasingly empty and lonely: I wanted what they had. Did Harry experience that same nagging broodiness when Wills sent him that first, precious photo of Princess Charlotte? It might be unfashionable to admit, but men get broody, too. I certainly did years before Diana and I had our two wonderful children, Sonny, five, and Dolly, one.
The trouble was, when I finally decided, at the age of 37, it was time to have children, my raucous lifestyle meant Diana didn't think I was fatherhood material. In one of the most brutal nuggets-of-life advice I've ever been given, she told me, "You're not ready to be a dad. You're still a child yourself." It stung like hell. But it was true. Because the grim reality is that, in a woman's eyes, good-time Charlies (or Harrys) might make a good "catch" but they make lousy dads.
So I vowed to change my ways. When I became a dad three weeks before my 39th birthday, I knew fatherhood was for me. Within six months I left Loaded and never looked back. I was finally ready to grow up. Now I can see Harry is ready to embark on that next stage. I don't know how long it will take for him to get there, but twice in the last week I've seen "the moment".
The first was last Thursday, when Harry held hands with the Second World War veteran Daphne Dunn at the Sydney Opera House and she stroked him on the cheek.
Prince Harry meets Daphne Dunne (wearing her husbands Victoria Cross) during a walkabout outside the Sydney Opera House.
Photo / Pool
The second moment came the other day, when Harry blew a playful raspberry at a child at the Halfmoon Bay School on Stewart Island, New Zealand. Here we saw him surrender the last vestiges of ego and self-consciousness that are vital to a lad being ready to fully embrace his desire to settle down and have children.
Prince Harry sits with pupils at Halfmoon Bay School in Oban.
Photo / Pool
Prince Harry shakes hands with pupils at Halfmoon Bay School in Oban.
Photo / Pool
Being ready for fatherhood is about sacrificing your own selfish pursuits and making those around you happy. At the end of it all, most lads - even the hardest ones - have a soft centre.
As one who made the painful transition from lad to dad, I look at Harry and know: this fine young man is ready.
Prince Harry talks to a little boy during a walkabout in Christchurch.
Photo / Pool
These flickers of feelings may be just the start, the first signposts for where he is heading - he is just 30 years old, after all - but those of us lads who went over the top before him now desperately want him to get there. He'll be a role model to all the other lads, cads and players when they are pondering life's biggest question: what makes men truly happy.
Quite simply, Prince Harry has blossomed not only into the world's most eligible bachelor, but best dad-in-waiting on earth. So, no pressure, then, your Highness.
