Prince Harry vowed to never ‘enjoy’ family hobby again after Princess Diana’s death - but he’s taken it back up and it’s all thanks to his children

Harry thought he was 'being mean to' his mum by enjoying it

Prince Harry
(Image credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo/Future)

Prince Harry has been spotted taking part in a family hobby he vowed to never ‘enjoy’ again after his mother Princess Diana’s death and he's doing it for the sake of his own children.  

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seem unfazed by the public discourse surrounding their recent website update. While experts and fans alike fuss over the fact their children have been given new surnames, despite Prince George, Charlotte and Louis already having their surnames changed three times in their short lives, the couple are busy enjoying their getaway in Vancouver, Canada where they're taking part in the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025's One Year to Go celebrations.

The pair were seen hitting the ski slopes, with Harry trying out some adaptive skis that allow the skier to sit while they race. It was smiles all around as Meghan cheered her husband on and Harry laughed with the other athletes taking part in the event. 

But Harry's relationship with skiing hasn't always been so healthy. The sport was one his late mother Princess Diana, who passed away in 1997 when he was only 12 years old, used to despise and when she died, Harry struggled to 'enjoy' himself on ski trips for a heartbreaking reason. 

Writing in his memoir Spare, Harry revealed that, whenever he would go skiing with his dad, King Charles III, they would leave Diana behind and he would miss her desperately. Even after she passed, he struggled to get over the 'guilt' of leaving her at home. 

"I loved skiing and I was good at it. But once Mummy was in my thoughts, I was buried under my own private avalanche of emotions. And questions," he wrote.

He added that he thought it was wrong "to enjoy a place that Mummy despises" and thought he was "being mean to" her if he had fun on his trips with his father when she was not there. He went to admit that, in recent years, the guilt had meant he'd not gone skiing as often as he would have liked.

But it seems that Harry has managed to work through the hard feelings and it's likely because Meghan wants to introduce their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to the sport he so loves. "Meghan said that she really wanted her children to learn to ski and that maybe Whistler was the ideal place. She said she didn’t ski, so we told her they must come and learn," a source from Invictus Games Vancouver previously told The Mirror.

While Archie and Lilibet, who sit sixth and seventh in the royal line of succession, are still a bit too young to hit the slopes themselves, we're sure they'll be cheering on their dad and looking forward to when the time comes around for him to teach them how to do the same. 

Keep up to date with more royal news such as Princess Charlotte's name is full of hidden tributes to Royal Family - did you notice them all? and Prince George is reportedly set to enrol at a secondary school who promise to produce ‘decent, ambitious’ and climate conscious pupils

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News writer

Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse is a news writer for Goodtoknow, specialising in family content. She began her freelance journalism career after graduating from Nottingham Trent University with an MA in Magazine Journalism, receiving an NCTJ diploma, and earning a First Class BA (Hons) in Journalism at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. She has also worked with BBC Good Food and The Independent.