Prince William said he’s ‘grateful’ to Princess Diana for showing him “another part of society” he wouldn’t have been exposed to.
The Prince of Wales, 40, has spoken of visiting homelessness charity The Passage in the 1990s with his late mother and brother Prince Harry, which opened his eyes.
For this year’s Red Nose Day with Comic Relief, King spoke candidly to volunteer reporters Miles and Noushin about the charity’s homelessness at Groundswells. Listen to the podcast.
William, who is now a patron of The Passage magazine, said he feels “grateful” that Diana took him there where he saw “the challenges of people in all walks of life”.
Speaking on the podcast, he said: ‘It started with a visit to The Passage with my mother a long time ago, and I think it opened my eyes to some of the challenges that face people in all walks of life.
Prince William says he’s ‘grateful’ to Princess Diana for showing him ‘another part of society’ he otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to on homelessness charity Groundswell podcast
I think it’s very important to reiterate, because I think a lot of people live in bubbles sometimes and they don’t really — they might care about that, but they’re not going to go and understand and understand what’s going on.
It’s not necessarily because they don’t want to, it’s just that they haven’t been exposed to it.
“They don’t really see it or maybe they’re just not curious to go, or our lives are so busy they don’t have time to go and do all that.
He continued, “I’m really thankful that my mother took me in and showed me another part of society that I probably won’t be exposed to.”
It sparked interest at the time, because the kind of characters that I met were amazing, they were amazing people.
and the stories, though obviously, at the time too light for me at that age, gradually as my interest in them deepened, and I spent more time in talking to people, I was always greatly inspired by what I heard.
The Prince of Wales, 40, spoke about a visit to homelessness charity The Passage in the 1990s with his late mother and brother Prince Harry which opened his eyes (pictured in The Passage in the early 1990s)
For this year’s Red Nose Day with Comic Relief, the royals spoke candidly to volunteer reporters Miles (left) and Noushin (right) on the homelessness charity Groundswell podcast.
You know, very disturbing and very traumatic stories, and honestly they should never have happened, but at the end of it I’m totally in awe of what they went through, how they managed to put themselves back where they are, in a normal, relatively safe place that they want to be.
Elsewhere, the prince highlighted how the pandemic has proven that homelessness can end because people gather together.
“Something in the psyche has probably changed about homelessness since the pandemic,” he said. “For those in this sector, the pandemic has shown that we can end homelessness.
‘Not quite like a magic wand but we got everyone off the streets and got people in accommodations and now there’s still more work to be done there but the point is we had some alliance where we said this is not in Reality isn’t just an aspiration, it can be done, if there is a will, there is a way to do it.
William, who is now patron of the aisle, said he was ‘grateful’ that Diana took him there as he saw ‘the challenges facing people from all walks of life’ (pictured at Princess Eugenie’s christening at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham in 1990)
The prince unveiled a plaque, during a visit to The Passage, to officially open the two apartment buildings in February
William went on to address the stigma around homelessness saying, “Any of us can be a few steps away from becoming homeless.”
He said through years of talking to people that a common “misconception” is that there is a “certain type of person who becomes homeless.”
“Ordinary people become homeless,” he said elsewhere, “not just anyone, it’s possible to fix it and we can do it, and that excites me. It really intrigues me to run dial-up.”
“What I’m trying to work for is that homelessness is rare, brief and infrequent.”
Groundswell works with people with experience of homelessness, providing opportunities to contribute to society and find solutions to homelessness.
