Continuing to display the same caring and loving spirit that his mother was known for, Prince Harry has again evoked the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, during an emotional hospital visit this week.
The Prince paid a visit to a HIV hospital in London today where his mother used to frequent.
Harry made the visit to Mildmay hospital in East London where he spent his time interacting with patients and hearing stories of his mother’s visits.
Meeting with the director of fundraising, Harry was told about how his mother’s visits helped to change the perception of HIV patients.
“She came at such an important time. Before she came here the local barbers wouldn’t cut the hair of people who worked here, the banks wouldn’t handle our money, dentists wouldn’t treat the staff and bricks were being thrown through our windows all the time,” said the director, Kerry Reeves-Kneip.
“But after the picture of her shaking hands with our patient and kissing him on the cheek went global, things changed,” she said.
Diana during one of her many visits to the hospital.
Harry followed in his mother’s footsteps during the visit, talking and sitting with patients.
“One of the patients got on her knees when she saw him and he got on his knees as well and they were holding hands,” said Kerry of Harry’s visit.
“He also met one of our sickest patients, and he found it quite moving to see just how ill people with HIV can be, although the patient was still very excited to meet him,” she said.
“One of the people he met is a 26-year-old woman who met Princess Diana at Great Ormond Street Hospital when she was two years old and HIV positive.”
“She told the Prince she sat on his mother’s lap and remembered how it was and how she cuddled into her and he said ‘I remember that too’,” she recalled.
Harry signs the hospital guest book under a portrait of his mother.
During their talk, Ms Reeves-Kneip also shared another funny anecdote about the Princess, recalling when she received a phone call from William and Harry’s school during a visit, informing her that one of the boys had climbed onto the roof.
“There was a phone call from the school saying one of you had climbed onto the roof,” Kerry told Harry.
“That was probably me,” said the Prince, 31.
After Kerry told him that the Princess ‘found it amusing’, Harry mused: “Phew, that was lucky!”
During her patronage of the hospital, Diana made around 14 private visits where she would sneak in to talk to the patients.
She visited the hospital 17 times in total.
