Prince Harry's 40th birthday 'incomplete' despite joy of fatherhood

Prince Harry will celebrate his 40th birthday tomorrow with his closest family and friends.

Although he finds great joy in fatherhood, the absence of his late mother, Princess Diana, makes his milestone birthday feel incomplete. Diana passed away when Harry was just 12, following a car crash in Paris that shocked the world.

Two weeks after her death, Harry turned 13 and marked his birthday at Ludgrove School, having just returned from the summer break and adjusting to life without his mother. 

In his memoir, Spare, Harry recounts how he had a birthday cake and sorbet at school, followed by a gift from his aunt, Diana’s sister, Sarah McCorquodale. He describes receiving an Xbox console, a present Diana had intended to give him before she died.

However, some readers have pointed out a discrepancy: the Xbox wasn’t available for purchase until four years later, having been released in 2001. This places it in competition with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube.

But as Harry couches in his autobiography: "That's the story, anyway. It's appeared in many accounts of my life, as gospel, and I have no idea if it's true. Pa said Mummy hurt her head, but perhaps I was the one with brain damage? As a defence mechanism, most likely, my memory was no longer recording things quite as it once did."

Even his Pulitzer Prize-winning ghostwriter JR Moehringer also defended the book after it was criticised for inaccuracies. In the days after the book was released, he posted on X a quote by Mary Karr, author of The Art of Memoir, which said: "The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact. There are inadvertent mistakes of those kind out of the wazoo."

He also shared several passages from Spare, where Harry admits that his words are how he remembers it. 

One said: "Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory. It does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there's just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts."

Earlier this week, ahead of his 40th birthday, Harry spoke out revealing his favourite ever gift - his children. The Duke of Sussex told how he has told how he has found happiness in fatherhood. "The best gift I've ever been given is, without a doubt, my kids," he said. "I enjoy watching them grow every single day, and I love being their dad."

According to People magazine, a favored publication of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry has no intention of resuming royal duties despite recent speculation. The magazine reports that Harry is content with his life in Montecito, California, and is focusing on his charitable work.

After his birthday celebrations, Harry will travel to New York City later this month to promote several projects that are meaningful to him, including the organization behind Princess Diana's Legacy Award. 

He is also dedicated to his Archewell Foundation, which he co-founded with Meghan, and is involved in various entertainment projects through their Netflix deal. This includes an upcoming documentary set to air in December that highlights his passion for polo.