It was a moment that left royal protection officer Ken Wharfe feeling like his career was about to end, and with good reason.
His young protégé, the extraordinarily mischievous Prince Harry, had escaped the confines of Kensington Palace and was finding himself in front of a record shop on the nearby high street.
Harry, then five or six years old, had used a police radio given to him by Inspector Wharfe to cheerfully tell the policeman where he was.
Wharfe previously recalled how his run to retrieve his load was the “fastest” he had ever made.
The incident was not the first time Harry, who turns 40 today, has 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 chef to make him pizza for dinner.
Eight-year-old Prince Harry was spotted with his mother Princess Diana and police bodyguard Ken Wharfe shopping in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, in November 1992. When he was five or six, he sneaked out of the grounds of Kensington Palace and headed into a record shop.
Inspector Wharfe took over the security of Prince William and Prince Harry in 1986.
The following year, he was appointed bodyguard to his mother, Princess Diana.
Harry’s escape from the confines of the Palace came after the soldier-obsessed young royal went to see Inspector Wharfe for entertainment.
Inspector Wharfe described him as a “real rebel” to GB News, saying: “I nearly lost my job once because of him. Because I was trying to relieve a feeling of boredom.
‘He came into my office and said, “Ken, I need to do something.”
I said, “Okay, look, here’s a radio, go to the garage, talk to the driver, make a phone call and I’ll give you another job.”
‘So we did that four or five times, we went to see the chef, we went to the flower seller, whatever, at the end she said, ‘can I go and see Aunt Jane?’, who was Diana’s sister, right outside the front of Kensington Palace.’
Inspector Wharfe recalled how Harry used a police radio he had been given to cheerfully tell the policeman standing outside Tower Records (above) on Kensington High Street, after sneaking out of the Palace grounds.
Inspector Wharfe consulted Lady Jane Fellowes and then allowed Harry to go see her.
She told the police officer that she would call him when she returned.
He continued: ‘About 20 minutes later, I called Jane and said, “Have you sent Harry back yet?”
She said, “I sent it back ten minutes ago.”
‘I was a little panicked, so I called him on the radio and said, “Harry, it’s Ken, where are you?”
Prince Harry lived at Kensington Palace with his mother, Princess Diana, his father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William.
Prince Harry sticks his tongue out at photographers from the back seat of his car as he and his brother drive away after seeing their newborn cousin Princess Beatrice at Portland Hospital in London, 1988.
Prince Harry and Prince William sitting on a police motorcycle alongside their mother Diana in 1987
He said Harry replied: “Wait a minute, I’m outside Tower Records.”
“It was the fastest run back I’d ever done. But anyway, there was this little kid standing outside Tower Records with my radio,” he added.
The policeman remained in his royal job until late 1993, after Prince Charles and Diana separated.
Tower Records’ first store, which opened in 1984, was on Kensington High Street.
The following year, the brand’s flagship store opened in Piccadilly Circus. Both stores were sold to Virgin in 2003 and then rebranded as Zavvi in 2007.
Zavvi went into administration in 2008.
Inspector Wharfe is the author of Diana: A Closely Kept Secret and Guarding Diana: Protecting the Princess Around the World.
An advertisement for the opening of Tower Records on Kensington High Street
