ANGELA MOLLARD: If Harry is smart, he’ll jump on a plane. This is the moment he must grow up and be there for his family… or face becoming irrelevant
More than at any other time in his life, Prince Harry is at crossroads.
His 75-year-old father is heading to hospital for surgery, his sister-in-law is in the middle of a health crisis that requires weeks of recuperation, and his brother, William, has stepped back from work to care for those he loves.
Without question, this is the moment that Harry becomes irrelevant – or proves he is the man of character we once knew him to be.
Will the Duke of Sussex step up and be the adult his family needs, or will he continue to sulk from afar?
Prince Harry was a man much loved in Britain until the traumas of the past few years
Harry and Meghan at the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany, last September
For years, Harry has been preoccupied with Harry.
Everything has been seen through the lens of his own widely publicised suffering.
But right now, it’s not about him. It’s not about being an heir or a spare, but a human with a heart. It is beholden upon him to show he genuinely cares.
We may expect a lot from this extraordinary family, but at heart we want from them what we want from each other: kindness and compassion.
It is when the great leveller that is illness comes to call that they are most like us.
Harry is a man with big feelings. And now, as he approaches his 40th birthday, this is the moment that he must channel his emotions outward rather than inward – perhaps for the first time since his mother died.
If he’s smart, he’ll jump on a plane and fly to the UK.
He won’t complain about security or where he might stay, but will be the man who – like thousands all over the country every day – downs tools to be with his family amid their challenges.
We know Harry has a huge heart.
This is the young man who felt deeply the suffering he saw in Africa, the soldier who had the mettle to fight in Afghanistan and the compassion to create the Invictus Games.
He was a man much loved in Britain until the traumas of the past few years.
Quietly, and without agenda, this is the moment that Prince Harry must grow up, let bygones be bygones and be there for those he loves.
