It was a moment that left royal protection officer Ken Wharfe feeling as though his career was about to end – and with good reason.
His young charge, the extraordinarily naughty Prince Harry, had snuck out of the confines of Kensington Palace and was standing outside a record shop on the nearby high street.
Harry, then aged five or six, had used a police radio Inspector Wharfe had given him to cheerily tell the policeman where he was.
Wharfe previously recalled how his dash to recover his charge was his ‘quickest’ ever.
The incident was not the first time that Harry, who turns 40 today, stepped out of line.
He once hit his brother Prince William with a snooker cue and on another occasion forged his nanny’s handwriting in an attempt to convince the family’s chef to make him pizza for dinner.
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Prince Harry, aged eight, seen with his mother Princess Diana and their police bodyguard Ken Wharfe out shopping in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, November 1992. When he was aged five or six he snuck out of the grounds of Kensington Palace and headed down to a record shop
Inspector Wharfe took charge of security for Prince William and Prince Harry in 1986.
The following year, he was appointed as a bodyguard to their mother Princess Diana.
Harry’s escape from the confines of the Palace came after the young, soldier-obsessed royal had gone to Inspector Wharfe looking to be entertained.
Describing him as a ‘real tearaway’ on GB News, Inspector Wharfe said: ‘I nearly lost my job once over him. Because he was trying to relieve a sense of boredom.
‘He came into my office, said, “Ken, I need to do something.”
I said, “Ok, look, here’s a radio, go up to the garage, speak to the chauffer, make a phone call and I’ll give you another job.
‘So we did that four or five times, gone to the chef, gone to the flower seller whatever, in the end he said, “can I go down and see Aunt Jane?“, which was Diana’s sister, just outside the front of Kensington Palace.’
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Inspector Wharfe recalled how Harry used a police radio he had given him to cheerily tell the policeman that he was standing outside Tower Records (above) on Kensington High Street, after sneaking out of the Palace grounds
Inspector Wharfe checked with Lady Jane Fellowes and then allowed Harry to go and see her.
She told the policeman that she would call him when he was on his way back.
He continued: ‘About 20 minutes later, I rang Jane and said, “have you sent Harry back yet?”
She said, “I sent him back ten minutes ago.”
‘A slight panic set in. So I called him up on the radio. I said, “Harry, it’s Ken, where are you?”
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Prince Harry lived at Kensington Palace with his mother Princess Diana, father Prince Charles and brother Prince William
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Prince Harry sticks his tongue out at photographers from the backseat of his car as he and his brother are driven away after seeing their newborn cousin Princess Beatrice at Portland Hospital in London, 1988
40 times Harry made us smile as he celebrates milestone birthday
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Prince Harry and Prince William sitting on a police motorbike alongside their mother Diana in 1987
He said that Harry replied, “Just a moment, I’m outside Tower Records”.
‘It was the quickest run back I had ever done. But anyway, there he was this small kid stood outside Tower Records with my radio,’ he added.
The policeman remained in royal employment until late 1993, after Prince Charles and Diana had separated.
Tower Records’ first store, which opened in 1984, was the one on Kensington High Street.
The following year, the firm’s flagship outlet at Piccadilly Circus opened. Both stores were sold to Virgin in 2003 and then renamed Zavvi in 2007.
Zavvi went into administration in 2008.
Inspector Wharfe is the author of Diana – Closely Guarded Secret and Guarding Diana – Protecting the Princess around the World.
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An advert for the opening of Tower Records on Kensington High Street
