29 September 2023 , 07:00
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After he left Ludgrove School, Prince Harry joined his elder brother Prince William at Eton College in 1997 and stayed there until 2002.
While he finished his studies with two A-Levels - a 'B' in Art and a 'D' in Geography - Prince Harry confessed that he does not remember his early days at the world famous college with any particular fondness. During his rounds of media interviews to promote his memoir Spare at the start of this year, Harry opened up about how he felt he didn't fit in at the school and was not welcomed by his elder brother.
While he also touches on his time at Eton in the book itself, Harry also recalled his disappointment at his elder brother Prince William not wanting to spend time with him at secondary school. Speaking to TV host Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, the Duke of Sussex says he took William's apparent rejection of him "personally". Cooper prompted: "Your brother told you, 'Pretend we don’t know each other'."
Prince Harry started studying at Eton in 1997 (UK Press via Getty Images)To which Harry replied: "Yeah, and at the time it hurt. I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, 'What do you mean? We’re now at the same school. Like, I haven’t seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together.' He’s like, 'No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other.' And I took that personally."
Touching on why he felt out of place compared to other boys at the iconic school, Harry wrote in Spare: "Sport, I decided, would be my thing at Eton." Referring to how he went against the grain and opted to not follow the rules to the letter he continued: "Sporty boys were separated into two groups: dry bobs and wet bobs. Dry bobs played cricket, football, rugby, or polo. Wet bobs rowed, sailed, or swam. I was a dry who occasionally got wet. I played every dry sport, though rugby captured my heart. Beautiful game, plus a good excuse to run into stuff very hard. Rugby let me indulge my rage. I simply didn't feel pain the way other boys did, which made me scary on a pitch."
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Later in a similar interview on ITV with journalist Tom Brady, Harry also discussed his rivalry with William and said that seeing his own two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, interact helped him understand his relationship with William a bit more. Harry said “the gap between me and William is very similar to Archie and Lili, and to see Lili obsessed with Archie, and Archie like ‘No, no Lili, I need my space, I need my space,’ now I get it." He added: “I get how irritating the younger sibling can be to the older sibling. But in the moment, at the time, I didn’t – I didn’t really grasp that, I didn’t really realise it, but yes, I’ve always loved my brother.”