It’s totally unrealistic to expect William and Harry to get on. They have different personalities and goals

Dukes Harry and William spent less than an hour in each other’s company this week, unveiling a statue of their mother, Diana, on what would have been her 60th birthday.

What’s the difference between the two princes, and the other famous primates in the enclosure down the road in Regents Park? The caged ones spend their days (like Harry and William) meeting the public and getting gawped at, but are allowed plenty of down time away from the cameras. Gorillas do not speak our language, so unless we’re primatologists we can’t interpret their moods and messages. We can take selfies, but they remain mysterious, brooding characters. Gods of the animal kingdom.

On the other hand, the royals are not allowed (by us) to have secrets. Every time these two primates appear in public their body language is carefully analysed for any sign of their mood, and the state of the family. A large part of the nation seems incredibly worried about their relationship. Have the brothers fallen out for good? Do their wives hate or love each other? Will their children ever meet for a play date?

Each day, we are inundated with speculation based on hearsay, innuendo and plain fantasy. Harry versus William is as big a draw as any match in the Euros. And it’s not going away.

In the two years since Harry and his wife left the UK to “live an authentic life” (their words), seeking “their truth”, William and Kate have been confined to the UK, continuing a daily round of official duties, opening parks, launching boats, visiting the sick and campaigning for mental health. Plus accompanying his granny whenever required.

For the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, work means appearing in public, dealing with constant scrutiny, knowing any sign of irritation, boredom, or tiredness will be picked on. They are performing a job, and whether you approve of royalty or not, they appear to be doing it well.

Harry and Meghan communicate through social media, unsurprising since they are living on a mountain in a rich enclave in Northern California. The other week, Harry gave a speech at the Diana Awards, congratulating people for “living authentic lives … showing compassion”. To an observer, the two brothers still speak English, but Harry is speaking the dialect known as “woke”, littered with self-help phrases associated with years of counselling.

They both seem kind, devoted family men – so why do so many people feel so strongly that they ought to be best friends?

I’m mystified by this fatuous notion that the brothers should get on, because “that’s what their mother would have wanted”. As an older sibling, like William, I know from personal experience that sibling rivalry (which descends into war) is all too commonplace.

What mothers might “want” is nothing to do with it. Sibling rivalry starts from birth when an elder child has to accommodate a new person in the family, one who is cooed over and cherished and made to feel special. That’s exactly what happened to me. My sister had dark curly hair and was smiley and fun – my hair was dreary beige-brown, and I tended to be introspective and thoughtful. I hated her on sight, even more when we had to share a bedroom for the first 12 years of our lives.

Things got so bad, I drew a line down the middle and said if she crossed it I would push her down the stairs. In fact, I did just that twice, but she just laughed it off, enraging me even more. Over the years, we would spend months at a time not communicating. If we had supper, she would demand I paid her taxi fare home, because she said I could afford it.

And yet, when she contracted lung and brain cancer, I put our differences to one side and paid for expensive laser treatment, delaying her death by a few months. Sibling rivalry never evaporates, it can reappear at any time.

A close friend hated the arrival of his sister so much he stopped eating properly for two years, surviving on swigs of Sanatogen and bacon rind! Watching the Sky documentary series about Ghislaine Maxwell this week, within her large and close family of siblings there were huge strains. It’s alleged that her mother told a friend she thought Ghislaine developed an eating disorder as young as four, because she believed her parents were devoting all their attention to an elder brother who was in a coma for years following a road accident.

We project an idealised version of sibling affection onto Harry and William because they were both made to walk behind their mother’s coffin, unbearably poignant images shown around the world. We have frozen their relationship at that moment in time – a pair of innocent victims.

Over the following years, as they matured, both young men dealt with her death in different ways. Harry drank and tried drugs and spent a lot of time in clubs. He went to war and returned to glory. William trained as a pilot, went to university, met his future wife, and knew that his path was mapped out. He wasn’t the “spare” but the “heir” and that involved, just as it did for his granny, the Queen, developing a sense of duty and a prodigious work ethic.

Personally, I don’t care whether William and Harry are ever going to speak again, it’s their business. They are not deciding government policy, they are not ending Covid-19 restrictions, they are not getting more houses built for the homeless, and they are not helping young people get the education they need to get decent jobs. They support worthy causes, including those surrounding mental health, and use their names to raise money and help others.

Why does it matter if they’re on speed dial to each other?

This week, they managed to jointly unveil a pretty second-rate statue, four years later than planned. Apparently, they’ve recently exchanged jokey texts about the Euros. A few fragile shoots of reconciliation, but hardly enough to rebuild the bonds of their early years when their mother – in a failing, embittered relationship – lavished all her love on them. Probably too much attention, because it has led Harry to talk about his mother as if she’s a goddess, not a normal person with an equal measure of captivating charm and sheer bloody-mindedness.

After her death, we built a myth and placed Diana on a pedestal. Now, we are creating pointless fantasies about how her sons should behave to each other. Leave them to be grumpy in peace.