Prince Harry has opened up on how he deals with grief in an emotional interview with the widow of a soldier who died in Afghanistan.
The Duke of Sussex embraced Nikki Scott, who runs a charity for bereaved military children called Scotty’s Little Soldiers, and told her how “things become easier” if children can talk about grief.
The royal, whose mother Princess Diana died when he was 12, spoke to Ms Scott about the moment she had to tell her five-year-old son that his father, Corporal Lee Scott, had been killed in Afghanistan.
In an emotional video prepared ahead of Armed Forces Day, Harry talked about his own experience of grief, saying: “You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost wants you, or you need to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they are missed. But then there’s this realisation of, no they must want me to be happy.”
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Mrs Scott explained how she broke the news in July 2009 to her young son Kai while caring for their seven-month-old daughter.
She said: “It was the worst. How do you tell a five-year-old this? I took him up and sat him on the bed and I said, ‘Kai, do you remember where Daddy was?’ and he said, ‘yeah, Afghan’, and I said, ‘something really bad has happened and the baddies (because he used to play Army) have hurt dad and he’s died’.”
Harry, who served in Afghanistan and is the Global Ambassador of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, spoke about the importance of children not suppressing their emotions.
He said: “That’s the hardest thing, especially for kids, I think, which is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it will make me sad, but once realising if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier’.”
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The children Scotty’s work with are supported until they turn 25 with one-to-one bereavement support, a respite break with the family, and opportunities to meet other people in the same situation.
The organisation currently supports more than 680 members and has a long-term goal of supporting more than 1,000 young people annually by 2030.
