Prince Harry: The Prince and the Paparazzi
Independent.co.uk, Profiles,October 24, 2004

Henry Charles Albert David (that's Sir to you, and Harry to the press) is a very angry young man. He has been hunted down by a new breed of press photographer and riled by accusations of cheating in his A-levels. Few would begrudge him a swing at his tormentors. But it will earn him still fewer admirers



Harry. It's a name that conjures up an image of naughtiness and naivety. It's not a proper grown-up name, but there's something rather endearing about it. And, true to character, that's how Prince Harry has always been portrayed by those who know him best: irrepressibly mischievous, daring and sometimes foolhardy. But always curiously lovable. This week his image changed.

"Oh, Harry?" people in the Palace would say to me with a knowing smile. "He's fine. He's just Harry - and he'll always be OK." Well, he isn't OK. He's riled and he's hurting. What's more - most unregally - he's letting it show.

His real name, of course, is Henry. In keeping with royal tradition, the infant prince was given a bewildering array of names when he was christened on 21 December 1984. In the grandeur of St George's Chapel, Windsor, the tiny tot was baptised Henry Charles Albert David - ample material to make any future bride comprehensively tongue-tied, just as Diana, Princess of Wales, was at her wedding. But, as Henry's dad let slip shortly after the Princess's death, his given name is rarely used. "Harry is only called Henry when he's been very, very naughty," the Prince of Wales said. I suspect that, after that now infamous fracas outside a London nightclub, "Henry" may well have been called into service.

There will, though, be enormous sympathy for him in royal circles - not least from his father and brother. For the 20-year-old prince has done what most of his family have been itching to do for decades: lashed out at the bane of their lives ... the press.
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Britain's Prince Harry, back to camera, clashes with photographer Chris Uncle, rear, outside an exclusive London west end nightclub in the early hours of Thursday Oct. 21, 2004. Both Prince Harry and the photographer were slightly injured in the incident which took place at 03.30am. (AP Photo/CharlIe Pycraft)
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