Prince Harry misses balcony appearances with late Queen: 'comic video'

Every year, the Royal Family gathers to celebrate the monarch's official birthday, a day of pageantry that culminates in an RAF flypast viewed from the Buckingham Palace balcony. 

Although Harry hasn't appeared on the balcony in recent years, it was a tradition he participated in for most of his life. 

While royal fans enjoy these balcony appearances, often charmed by the royal children's personalities, Harry revealed in his memoir Spare that these moments hold significant family memories.

In a touching passage from Prince Harry's bestselling memoir Spare, which sheds light on life within the Royal Family, the Duke of Sussex shared memories that resurfaced after the death of his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth. 

Among the cherished moments they shared, Harry recounted a particularly sweet memory from a balcony appearance when he made his grandmother laugh, despite the formality of the occasion.

"I couldn't stop...remembering. Day and night, images flitted through my mind," Harry wrote about the loss of the Queen. "Standing before her during my passing-out parade, shoulders thrown back, catching her half smile. Stationed beside her on the balcony, saying something that caught her off guard and made her, despite the solemnity of the occasion, laugh out loud."

Other memories that Harry described coming back to him in the aftermath of the Queen's death included the last time his children had been with the former monarch.

She had agreed to take part in a comic video to launch his passion project the Invictus Games, when the world had been treated to the Queen's funny side, despite people not realising "she possessed such a wicked sense of humour - but she did, she always did! That was one of our little secrets."

In another passage of Spare, Harry described the "distance" usually required when appearing in public as a royal, even when they were all together on the balcony - the contrast of which made his memory of making the late monarch laugh on one of these occasions even more moving.

"As a royal, you were always taught to maintain a buffer zone between you and the rest of creation. Even working a crowd you always kept a discreet distance between Yourself and Them.

"Distance was right, distance was safe, distance was survival. Distance was an essential part of being royal, no less than standing on the balcony waving to the crowds outside Buckingham Palace, your family all around you."