Secrets of Prince Harry and William’s childhood revealed including eating in nursery until TEN
YOU may imagine a young Prince William and Prince Harry growing up eating their food in a grand dining room at the palace.
However, a former royal chef has revealed that the young princes ate in their nursery until they were around 10 years old.
Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, Former Royal Chef Mervyn Wycherley, who worked at the palace for 33 years, gave insight into their boys’ upbringing.
He shared: “The children are in the nursery until they are about 10 with a nanny.
“And often the principals would go and dine in the nursery along with them, rather than have the children in the dining room.
“They really had the basic [meals]. It was all the old cottage pies and treacle tarts and all that sort of thing.
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“Very, very nutritious and good, substantial food.”
During his time with the family, Mervyn said neither Prince William and Prince Harry showed a desire to be a budding chef themselves.
Mervyn added: “No, sometimes they got drafted by the nanny to go downstairs and help the chef.
“The Nanny was trying to get rid of them, so they sent them down to make pastry.
“That didn't happen too often, thankfully.”
When they got older, protection officer Ken Wharfe recalled how Prince William and Prince Harry would sometimes leave the palace to go to restaurants with their friends.
However, it didn't always go down well with King Charles having a unimpressed reaction when they went to Sticky Fingers restaurant in Kenginston for burgers.
Ken shared: "There was this sort of look of disdain with him across the prince's face."
Palace childhood
Prince Harry opened up about growing up at Kensington Palace in his bombshell Spare memoir, including playing on Princess Diana’s waterbed.
He wrote: “I remembered mornings in Mummy’s apartment at Kensington Palace, the nanny waking Willy and me, helping us down to Mummy’s bedroom.
“I remembered that she had a waterbed, and Willy and I would jump up and down on the mattress, screaming, laughing, our hair standing straight up.
“I remembered the breakfasts together, Mummy loving grapefruit and lychees, seldom drinking coffee or tea.
“I remembered that after breakfast we’d embark on the working day with her, sitting by her side during her first phone calls, auditing her business meetings.”
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Meanwhile, at bedtime he would say goodnight to his late mother at the “foot of the stairs” and then would lie in bed “feeling so far away, so alone, and longing to hear her voice just one more time.”
He added: “I remembered my bedroom being the farthest from hers, and in the dark, in the terrible silence, being unable to relax, unable to let go.”
What it is like being a chef for the royal family
“Some Royals had their food prepared separately away from guests at big banquet events.
“However, with the Queen, we would prepare 150 plates and the Queen’s page would come in and pick one at random.
“That way, if you were to tamper with the food you would have to tamper with all of them.
“From our perspective, it also meant we had to get the same standard across every plate, not knowing which one the Queen would be eating.”