“Spare” Arrives with A Bang

Prince Harry’s ghosted memoir hits the book stores creating substantial public interest and media publicity. It is an arresting read. His biographer has done an outstanding job to capture the role of and restrictions applied to a spare Australian Head of State. While the analytical pieces in the UK appeared almost straightaway in the media, here the publication was treated as a celebrity expose with sensational press reporting of selected incidents and excerpts. It took some time for reflective pieces to appear appreciating the ultimate impact of the book. To WfaAR, it appeared that while Charles himself, followed by Diana and later by Andrew had given the foundations of the House of Windsor a good shake, Harry had arrived with a D8 bulldozer intent on serious undermining. This can definitely damage the reputation of the British royals in Australia (our royal family too) that no pomp and circumstance, affection for the new monarch and the like can repair. It is worth pointing out, though, that Harry is not anti-monarchy as was neither his mother before him. That is not an objective of “Spare”. What the book reveals is a conflicted, rigid, old-fashioned family and the fraught, destructive but deliberate relationships that exist between the royals, their courtiers and the British media.