Prince Harry showed Archie, 5, pics of Princess Diana’s landmine walk
Prince Harry is reflecting on the important work his late mother, Princess Diana partook in.
The Duke of Sussex, 40, shared how a conversation about the Invictus Games with his son, Prince Archie, 5, went in a “different” direction and morphed into a chat about the tyke’s late grandmother, who died at age 36 in 1997.
During the 2025 Invictus Games, Prince Harry spoke with CTV about how he explained the adaptive sporting competition for sick, wounded and injured service personnel and veterans to Archie and Princess Lilibet, 3.
“You either shut it down straight away, which I would never do, or you engage in the conversation and you try to explain things,” Prince Harry, who is married to Meghan Markle, 43, said. “Archie was asking about landmines, so I was talking about how some of these guys [Invictus Games participants] were blown up.”
He continued, “I think IEDs are probably a bit too much at this point, but I found myself talking to him about mines when he was 5 years old.”
But the discussion quickly turned into how Princess Diana famously walked through a landmine field in Angola that was being cleared by the Halo Trust to raise awareness of the issue in 1997.
“Interestingly, it gave me a chance to talk about my mum, his grandma, which I didn’t even really consider,” Harry recalled. “That became the outcome of the story for him. He wanted to see videos and photographs of his Grandma Diana out doing her thing for landmines all those years ago.”
“It produced a very interesting conversation between me and him, different to what I thought it would be.”
Prince Harry continues to follow in his mother’s footsteps by making a similar walk to help clear dangerous landmines around the world.
In September 2019, the Duke of Sussex wore protective gear and a visor, like his mother, as he visited a Halo Trust mine site in Angola.
He also visited the area where his mother walked, which is now a thriving community. A tree named the Diana Tree marks the spot where she was photographed during the 1997 trip.
“It has been emotional retracing my mother’s steps along this street 22 years on and to see the transformation that has taken place, from an unsafe and desolate place into a vibrant community of local businesses and colleges,” he said at the time.
Prince Harry has continued to keep Princess Diana’s memory alive through his children.
In the 2021 Apple TV+ docuseries “The Me You Can’t See,” the royal member said, “I got a photo of her in [Archie’s] nursery, and it was one of the first words that he said — apart from ‘mama,’ ‘papa,’ it was then ‘grandma.’ Grandma Diana. It’s the sweetest thing, but at the same time, it makes me really sad because she should be here.”
The Invictus Games is taking place in Vancouver and Whistler from Feb. 8 until Feb. 16.
“I showed Archie a video of wheelchair basketball and rugby from the Invictus Games in Sydney, and he absolutely loved it,” Harry told People about their conversation.
“I showed him how some were missing legs and explained that some had invisible injuries, too,” he added. “Not because he asked but because I wanted to tell him. Kids understand so much, and to see it through his eyes was amazing because it’s so unfiltered and honest.”
