The royal bodyguard who was with William and Harry on the day Princess Diana died would have been ‘horrified’ at their estrangement, a former colleague told MailOnline today.
Graham Craker embraced the role of ‘protector and pseudo-parent’ to the brothers when they were children, especially when they were sent to boarding school and lost their mother.
Mr Craker, who was fondly nicknamed ‘Crackers’ by the two Princes, was a Metropolitan Police officer for 35 years after joining as a teenager. He served as the boys’ personal protection officer for 15 years until he retired in 2001.
He died after a battle with colon cancer at the age of 77 on April 2.
A retired Metropolitan Police royal bodyguard who knew Mr Craker has told MailOnline that Graham was a model professional – whose care for Diana’s sons went well beyond their personal safety.
‘He would be horrified about the rift between the princes’, he confided to MailOnline.
Graham was one of the first people to see William shortly after he found out Princess Diana had died in Paris in 1997 as he protected the Royal Family at Balmoral.
But six years earlier he and his sons Matthew and James suffered their own personal tragedy when his wife Carole Ann was found dead at the age of 42 after a battle with depression. News of her death had left Princess Diana ‘very upset’ for him and his family.
In the years that followed he was a reassuring presence for the princes, even joining them on a rollercoaster at Alton Towers in 1994.
Graham was particularly close to William. In 1995, after the future king passed his Eton entrance exam, the pair were seen together eating a Cornetto each to celebrate.
Such was his importance to the boys, and their mother, on the day of Diana’s funeral he accompanied William and Harry as they walked behind the hearse carrying their mother’s body as it made the journey from St James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey.
The extent of the Princes’ bond with Craker was also demonstrated by the fact he was a guest at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011 – 10 years after he had quit his job as a royal bodyguard. Harry was William’s best man.
Prince William and Graham Craker together out shopping in London in 1996
Crackers, as William and Harry called him fondly, on an Alton Towers ride with the boys in 1994
On the day of Diana’s death, Craker was with the pair in Balmoral in Scotland, with their father the then-Prince Charles and their grandparents Queen Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh. Pictured here on the day of Diana’s funeral
Craker, a Met Police officer for 35 years, is seen here (top left) watching the crowd during a public engagement by Princess Diana
Graham Craker (left ) was a volunteer at the Southern Maltings creative centre in Ware, Hertfordshire. He served as a royal personal protection officer for 15 years until he retired in 2001
The Duke of Sussex was in London this week for his legal battle over police protection
Graham was from the ‘old school’ of royal bodyguards who protected them but also ensured they knew he was someone they could trust and talk to.
‘Crackers’ was hand-picked because he had those qualities, MailOnline’s insider said.
Graham was known to pop out to the shops with the boys, and was pictured several times on high streets close to Kensington and Buckingham palaces with William when he was a teenager. He also spent time with Harry, including on a hunt.
Rumours are already swirling that Harry and William could attend the funeral, which is expected to take place in Hertfordshire.
The police insider said that a report claiming that Harry could be barred by his father or brother from his funeral are far-fetched – and is certainly not what Graham would want.
‘It would be wonderful if somehow they were brought closer together, especially after all they have gone through. But unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any common ground. One has isolated himself in California – the other is fully on the side of The Firm’.
Graham with Diana and William as they left a cinema in 1995
The two young princes (pictured here in 1989 in their uniforms for Harry’s first day at Wetherby School in Notting Hill) nicknamed their bodyguard ‘Crackers’
‘Crackers’, as William and Harry called him, would have been a ‘pseudo-parent’ to the boys, as were the other officers who guarded them, the former royal bodyguard said.
‘As a protector of the royal family, you do get to spend an awful lot of time with principals. At the time in the boys’ life, they were young, Graham would have also been someone to talk to and confide in’, the retired Met Officer said.
‘Everybody who worked with them will have felt very protective of the princes’.
At the time he was protecting the Royal Family, he and his sons Matthew and James suffered their own tragedy.
Carole Ann Craker died in December 1991. Her inquest recorded an open verdict but heard she had been clinically depressed.
The couple had split the previous year but remained good friends.
Their sons are now grieving their father.
They have described him as ‘Our hero, our rock’.
‘Words can’t describe the pride we feel in how he lived his life so selflessly, not only in his professional career but in his personal life, right up to the very end’, they said.
On August 31, 1997, the day of Princess Diana’s death, Mr Craker was with her sons in Balmoral in Scotland.
Their father the then-Prince Charles and their grandparents Queen Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh.
Harry has described in his memoir Spare how he was 12 and was woken at around 7am by his father waking him to tell him that his mother was dead.
‘Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances. But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ But after that, nothing was OK for a long time’, he wrote.
Speaking to the New York Post in 2017, Graham Craker described hearing the news and then seeing Diana’s eldest son soon afterwards.
‘Perhaps the most emotional was seeing William the morning after’, he said.
‘I saw William walking his dog outside, and I walked up to him and said, ‘I’m very, very sorry to hear your bad news.’ William very sadly said, ‘Thank you.”
He said: ‘I was standing at the rear of the hearse and William looked up and acknowledged me. I looked toward him and nodded. William was comforted that I was with his mum on her final journey.
Despite clashes as young boys, the brothers had been close. But relations have crumbled since Harry’s explosive autobiography and recent docu-series on Netflix. The pair are pictured in 1991 with mother Diana in Ontario, Canada
Craker rode up front in the hearse containing the coffin of Princess Diana as it left Westminster Abbey after the funeral service
‘There were people in tears, on their knees crossing themselves, throwing flowers at the hearse.
‘The bit that amazed me is when we got on the northbound M1, even the southbound traffic had stopped and people got out of their cars and bowed in respect.’
The Princes’ fondness for Craker was evident in the way they spoke about their protection officer – including in their personal writings.
In his memoir Spare, Harry wrote: ‘The driver had to keep pulling over so the bodyguard could get out and clear the flowers off the windscreen.
‘The bodyguard was Graham. Willy and I liked him a lot. We always called him Crackers. We thought that was hysterical.’
Craker was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to the Royal Family and made a Freeman of the City of London.
Later in life he worked with charities in Ware, including serving as a trustee for Always Bee You, a Hertfordshire based charity which supports adults with learning disabilities and mental health issues.
He also volunteered at Southern Maltings creative centre, who in a tribute post on Facebook, affectionately referred to him as ‘our very own James Bond’.
‘It is with much sadness that we must share that our friend and colleague, Graham Craker, has sadly died,’ they wrote.
‘Graham has been on our journey almost from the very beginning, and has been behind our bar for the whole of that time, making sure everyone has the best of times.
‘While to the most important people in his life Graham was a father, and grandfather, to us he was a valued friend and colleague.
‘He was the only volunteer to have a set of keys to the building, such is the measure of how trusted and respected he was, and it was not unusual to find him around, even when there was no event, because he wanted to make sure the bar was clean, stocked and ready for everyone else.
‘But mostly, for those of us who worked events, he will be remembered for his laugh, his warmth and the way he always just wanted to help people.
‘From a career in the police, as a member of the protection squad, a huge driving force in the rotary and eventually a key volunteer at the Southern Maltings, so many people are going to miss our very own James Bond.
‘Our broken hearts go out to his family and everyone who knew him. RIP Crackers, we’ll make sure you are remembered behind the bar and will raise a glass for you this evening.’
