Prince William Holds First News Conference
L O N D O N, Sept. 29 -- Royals normally do not give news conferences, so it was quite an event when Prince William met with reporters to talk about his plans for the next year and a book that “betrayed” his mother’s memory.
With his father, Prince Charles, by his side to lend moral support, a sometimes shy William posed for pictures and answered questions today from reporters gathered at Highgrove, the Prince of Wales’ country home near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, in western England.
The 18-year-old prince discussed how he will spend his “gap year” between prep school and university. But by far the toughest question he faced in his first-ever news conference was about the latest book about his mother, Princess Diana. In it, her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, calls Diana a “scheming liar.”
William said he and his younger brother, 16-year-old Prince Harry, considered the book another attempt to exploit their late mother’s memory. .
“Of course, Harry and I were quite upset about it, that our mother’s trust has been betrayed and that even now she is still being exploited. But I don’t want to say any more on that,” William said.
Adventure in Patagonia
Now a graduate of Eton, the British equivalent of a top private high school, Prince William — the second in line for the throne — is taking a year off before starting college.
The teenage prince said he will spend 10 weeks with an expedition in South America, traveling to some of the most remote parts of Patagonia in southern Argentina, where he will work alongside 110 other young volunteers on environmental and community projects.
“I wanted to do something constructive,” he told reporters.
“I mean I could do other work but I thought this was the way to try to help people out and meet a whole range of different people from different countries,” William said.
Casually dressed in a light brown pullover, the prince often lowered his gaze from the cameras in a way that reminded onlookers of his late mother.
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