Prince Harry made a sweet confession to ITV's Alison Hammond during his solo trip to Birmingham on Friday, July 10, as he launched the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC).
Harry's Family Admiration for Alison Hammond
The Duke of Sussex spoke to Brummie Alison, who hosts Channel 4's The Great British Bake Off, and told her: "By the way my kids loved you in the Bake Off – absolutely love it. I love it as well."
Alison responded: "Your kids and Meghan must be so proud of you. Do they tell you every day?" Harry replied: "They don't tell me every day that they're proud of me but yeah, I'm proud of them, they're proud of me, I love my family."
Invictus Games and Birmingham's Significance
The prince also told Alison that 'Birmingham is the centre point where so many of the wounded soldiers came back through from Afghanistan'. He said: "Not just from the UK but from other nations as well. This is a real homecoming for so many of them… It's quite a moving return for these guys."
Asked why the Invictus Games had 'captured people's hearts', Harry said it was because it was 'literally overcoming adversity'. He explained: "I think that no matter who you are, where you are, whatever you've come up against, you can see those guys. One leg, no legs, no arm, whatever that's going on – with invisible injuries as well – there's just a huge amount of respect, hope and also admiration and inspiration."
Resilience and National Inspiration
Harry continued: "Because no matter who you are, whether you've been lying on the couch with a broken back or whatever injury or illness that you've had, you look at these guys and go 'well if they can do it I can bloody well do it as well'. I think that's the mentality. For all the military training… there's resilience in every single one of us."
He added: "I think when you're really up against it how you decide to use that trauma, that experience or that loss, how you use that to really grow that resilience in yourself, I think that's what people can connect to and now more than ever we need to grow the national resilience here in the UK but also around the world."
Background on the Invictus Games
Harry launched the Paralympic-style championships in London in 2014. His wife Meghan Markle and their children Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, did not join him on this solo trip to Birmingham.
