I’m sorry, you’re dad to me now: Prince Harry’s father trouble

When King Charles celebrates his 75th birthday next week with a party at Clarence House, Prince Harry will not be in attendance – an annoyance that has driven a further wedge between the feuding pair. But, writes Flic Everett, behind almost every successful father, you’ll find a son with a grievance

A right royal soap opera: Charles and his youngest son, Harry (Getty)

It’s a weary trope to liken the royal household to a Greek tragedy – frankly, Zeus would laugh at the feeble concerns of the House of Windsor – but there is one similarity: both involve an estranged, angry father and an unhappy, resentful son.

This week, new brickbats were hurled between Montecito and Clarence House, with reports suggesting that King Charles was distraught not to have heard from Prince Harry regarding his imminent 75th birthday bash. For his part, Harry insisted that no invitation had been forthcoming.

And still the royal feuding rolls on. Harry and Meghan, who have declined to spend Christmas with the royal family for the past three years, are reported to have again made plans to stay in California, rather than travel to Sandringham.

We might murmur “FFS” – for father’s sake… – but Charles and Harry are far from alone.

One reason the TV drama Succession gripped us so tightly was its recognisable portrayal of an emotionally violent patriarch and his weakened children, grappling for his favour in the snake pit of ambition. It was, as many pompous reviewers pointed out, a modern version of Shakespeare, who knew all about furious, disappointed fathers and their embittered children (paging Regan and Goneril). We respond to such stories because we recognise them, from Zeus himself to Breaking Bad’s Walter White, screwing over his loving only son in the twisted belief that he’s securing his future.

Difficult fathers and the sons who long to please them run through our culture like a seam of coal. Sitcom’s Frasier Crane – recently rebooted, dad-less, and all the poorer for it – displayed a weary snobbery toward his bluff, ex-cop dad Marty, but deep down, all he wanted was a pat on the shoulder and acceptance into the working men’s club.

The entire Godfather trilogy is fundamentally about the tragedy of men trying and failing to please their fathers. Star Wars turns on the discovery that evil Darth Vader is Luke’s dad. In Robert Galbraith’s hugely popular Cormoran Strike novels, Strike is estranged from his father, a louche, fading rock star, and spends much of the books trying to avoid ever meeting him.

And the daddy issues play out in real life, too. Many have speculated that Boris Johnson’s childish (and ongoing) desire to be “World King” was a direct result of his father Stanley’s unique parenting style. Nat Rothschild, heir apparent to a banking fortune, fell out dramatically with his baron father when he married a former Page 3 girl. Businessman Robin Birley argued so spectacularly with his father, Mark Birley, owner of the aristocrat’s nightclub-of-choice, Annabel’s, that he built up a portfolio of rival establishments of his own; the two were in and out of court via a revolving door until Birley senior’s death in 2007.

It’s not just men who fall out spectacularly with their fathers, either. The touchpaper on Meghan Markle’s relationship with her father was lit on the eve of her wedding when Thomas, who had been due to walk his daughter down the aisle at St George's Chapel, was forced to miss the occasion after heart surgery. A bingo-card of tabloid drama has ensued ever since, including bean-spilling half-siblings, leaked, tear-stained letters to “Daddy…” and paparazzi chases, to the point that recollections about the pair’s estrangement now vary.

Less messy but equally strained was the huge falling-out between Angelina Jolie and her father, actor John Voight, who this week posted a video detailing his “disappointment” in her. It’s unlikely he’ll open a cheerful round-robin from the Jolie household this Christmas.

Scratch almost any successful father and beneath, you’re likely to find a child with daddy issues – with the possible exceptions of Bruce Springsteen and Gordon Ramsay, whose kids seem peculiarly well-adjusted.

Therapists might suggest it’s all due to toxic familial patterns, ingrained childhood beliefs about what constitutes success and manhood, and the crushing awareness that you can never live up to the golden god who is your father. That’s probably all true – but it also comes down to disappointment, on both sides, from a father who hopes for a child in his image, who will shine a flattering light without ever eclipsing him – and a child who knows he, or she, can never be enough. The only solution is for the child to forge their own path, and find a way to believe in themselves, far from the shifting sands of paternal approval.

Was Harry right to escape from his “FFS” fate, making a new sunlit life for himself without the phalanx of courtiers in polished Churches’ brogues breathing: “Your father won’t be happy, Your Grace…”?

Perhaps. But what is clear is, when it comes to the father-son kiss-off, Sylvia Plath – no stranger to father issues herself – had the best put-down: “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.”