PRINCES ON SAFARI HOL WITH TIGGY
By JANE KERR, Royal Reporter
PRINCES William and Harry are enjoying the holiday of their dreams with royal helper Tiggy Legge Bourke. They are following in their father's footsteps on an African safari in Botswana.
Prince Charles is footing the bill - believed to be £20,000 - for the boys and three adult friends who left Britain on Wednesday last week with Tiggy and two detectives.
The adventure fulfilled an ambition for William, 16, who put a safari on his birthday wish-list last June. Charles was keen for his sons to experience the thrill he felt during a trip there in 1987.
The choice of Tiggy to accompany Wills and Harry, 14, shows she still plays a vital part in their lives. She has been a great comfort to Harry since Diana's death.
The royal party includes Charles's former extra equerry, ex-Welsh Guards captain Mark Dyer, and Wills' friends Edward Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, 28, and his girlfriend Frankie Moss.
Drax and Moss - pals of Tiggy - have become increasingly close to the boys since Princess Diana's death and went on a skiing holiday with them to Canada.
The princes have been staying in tents and traditional thatched huts on the Moremi Wildlife Reserve.
Tears
Wills and Harry also helped Tiggy celebrate her 34th birthday on Thursday. Botswana is one of Charles's favourite places. He and his mentor, South African writer and explorer Sir Laurens van der Post, slept under the stars and watched a herd of 20,000 zebra which the prince later said moved him to tears.
William and Harry, who return from holiday tomorrow, are expected to join Charles at Birkhall, The Queen Mother's estate near Balmoral, for the rest of their school holiday from Eton.
- An April Fools Day joke claiming that God Save the Queen would be replaced by a European anthem tickled Palace staff so much that they ordered a copy of the tune for Charles.
Radio 4's Today team recruited a German choir to sing the spoof anthem.