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PRINCES UNITED IN GRIEF
Heartache for William & Harry as bodyguard who was with princes when Diana was killed in car crash dies aged 77
Graham Craker sat in the front of the hearse carrying Princess Diana to her final resting place
PRINCES William and Harry are mourning their former bodyguard — who was with them the day they learned that Princess Diana had died.
Graham Craker, 77, nicknamed Crackers by the young brothers, walked with them behind their mum’s hearse as it made its way from St James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey for her funeral.
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Graham then sat in the front of the hearse carrying the Princess to her final resting place at Althorp House.
And footage on the day showed him having to get out of the car to clear flowers from the windscreen thrown by the thousands of well-wishers.
In his memoir Spare, Harry wrote: "The driver had to keep pulling over so the bodyguard could get out and clear the flowers off the windscreen.
“The bodyguard was Graham. Willy and I liked him a lot. We always called him Crackers. We thought that was hysterical.”
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He was also pictured with the princes when Diana took them to Alton Towers in April 1994.
Graham — a guest at Kate and William’s wedding at Westminster Abbey in 2011 — spent 35 years in the Met Police, with 15 serving as a royal bodyguard until his retirement in 2001.
He was also made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to the Royal Family.
He later volunteered for charities in Ware, Herts.
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During an interview after his retirement, he described being at Balmoral with the Royal Family when news broke that Diana had been killed in a 1997 car crash in Paris.
Graham said: “I crept down the stairs to the house phone and dialled the duty office at Buckingham Palace.
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“They said there were reports there’d been an accident and Dodi Fayed had been killed and the Princess had a broken arm.”
On discovering Diana had also been killed, Graham added: “It was disbelief, really, and obviously a great deal of sorrow.
"You try and deal with it as best you can but you do get quite emotional about it.”
Graham went on: “Perhaps the most emotional was seeing William the morning after.
"I saw William walking his dog outside, and I walked up to him and said, ‘I’m very, very sorry to hear your bad news’. William very sadly said, ‘Thank you’.”
Of the funeral, he said: “I was standing at the rear of the hearse and William looked up and acknowledged me. I looked toward him and nodded.
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“William was comforted I was with his mum on her final journey.”
A spokesman for the Prince of Wales did not want to comment.
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