Full text: interviewed in Afghanistan | Full text: interviewed before departure l Video: on the front line | Video: Harry's job | Pictures: Harry in Helmand | Media blackout | 'Treated like the rest' | The farewell party | British monarchs who have served

Few serving soldiers enjoy the privilege of learning of their next posting from the mouth of their ultimate commander-in-chief. Prince Harry heard that he was bound for Afghanistan from the Queen.

It was at one of those family weekends at Windsor Castle where, among ordinary folks, the generation gap is bridged by small talk, and polite inquiry as to how the chosen career is going. But Grandma is also Harry’s ultimate boss, and she knows more than a thing or two about soldiering.

In a remarkably frank and wideranging interview conducted at Clarence House before he left for Helmand Province, Harry conceded that she was a particularly good person to talk about his next career move. “Her knowledge of the Army is amazing for a grandmother; I suppose it’s slightly her job.”

The Queen, he said, had always been supportive of his desire to serve in a live theatre so that he could stand man-to-man with his comrades. He clearly did not want to be one of those gentlemen of England now abed who thought themselves accursed they were not at Agincourt. Unlike Henry V, Harry had moments of wishing he was not royal.

The possibility of him serving on the front line has caused much sweat and pencil-chewing among the professional military top brass. Yet Harry has always been anxious to gather the same battle scars as his comrades and avoid the danger of pussyfooting that his superiors might take towards a potential heir to the throne, who could act as an unusually desirable target for the enemy.

“I would never want to put someone else’s life in danger when they have to sit next to the bullet magnet. But if I’m wanted, if I’m needed, then I will serve my country as I signed up to do,” he said before leaving.

There were still frustrations, like being unable to spread the news beyond his very closest friends. “I have told the people that I feel would need to know but other people I don’t really want to put in that position of saying, ‘Right, I’m going’, and then they feel as though they’ve got to keep that deep down inside. People will be nervous, I think, for me. I hope there will be a bit of shock or surprise when they find out that I am actually out there.”

Known in his off-duty moments for the occasional spot of high living and serious relaxation, Harry recognised that he was not on his way to the world capital of sensuality.

“It’s no great holiday resort apparently but I really look forward to going there. It is winter, which is a slight disappointment. It is just going to be a little bit cold, a bit snowy, but at least we might have a white Christmas.” What he got instead was a sandy Christmas.

The Queen, in whose name all British servicemen fight, has been as much a grandmother in this instance as the lady who takes the salute at Trooping the Colour. She is particularly fond of both William and Harry; she is thought, like any grandmother, to be occasionally shocked at the younger brother’s occasional excesses but ultimately to be supportive, especially since their mother died.

Harry has suggested that the Queen backed his desire to go to Iraq until the plan was overuled by military chiefs. They may all ultimately answer to her but she does not interfere in operational affairs and is as good at taking advice as giving it.

At least the news imparted by Grandma evaporated Harry’s previous frustration at being grounded from planned service in Iraq, after venting his feelings that being left behind while his comrades went to war would do neither his reputation nor his self-esteem any favours at all. In the interview, which was intended for release after his safe return, Harry described his reaction on hearing the news of his posting from the Queen: “A bit of excitement, a bit of phew, I finally get the chance to actually do the soldiering I wanted to do from ever since I joined.”

The Commander-in-Chief of Britain’s Armed Forces had been wholly supportive of her grandson’s desire to see active service, Harry said. “We’ve had lots of talks about it since April, and she was very pro me going then. So I think she’s relieved that I get the chance to do what I want to do.”

She and everyone else had witnessed Harry’s frustration when told initially that he would not be leading his troop of 11 men to the front line. “There was a lot of frustration but, as they say in the Army, ‘Turn to the right and carry on’.”

When told last year that it would be too dangerous for himself and his men to go into an active warzone, did he think of quitting?

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘quitting’. It was a case of, ‘I very much feel like if I’m going to cause this much chaos to a lot of people then maybe I should bow out’. And not just for my own sake, for everyone else’s sake. It was something that I thought about but at the same time I was very keen to make this happen — or hope for the opportunity to arise — and luckily it has.”

What stopped him bowing out, Harry said, was the possibility of a second chance, dangled before him as a carrot. “I really enjoy the Army. Anyone who says they don’t enjoy the Army is mad; you can spend a week hating it and the next week it could be the best thing in the world and the best job you could ever, ever wish for. It has got so much to offer.”

But the initial refusal to send him towards the muck and bullets still rankled although he claimed to be philosophical about it at the time.

“It was a case of yeah, well, I haven’t, sort of, won the battle this time; for numerous reasons I can’t go on operations. I understand that but I will hang around and hopefully they will use me at some point.”

It would never have happened if Harry had not been a prince. Did he ever wish that he wasn’t one?

“I wish that quite a lot, actually. William and I have said numerous times that there’s a lot of opportunities we miss out on, as well as getting a lot of chances because of who we are. But it was very hard, and I did think that clearly one of the reasons that I’m not going was the fact of who I am.”

He was well aware at the time of the risk, not only to himself, but to his men. Within 20 minutes of news breaking that he would not be going, he gathered his men and explained the decision to them. “And them being the soldiers that they are said, ‘It’s ridiculous. I would happily be under fire, be next to you as a troop leader’, all this sort of stuff, as any troop leader would expect from another soldier. It’s a sort of brotherhood.”

They had a laugh about it, Harry said, and he then had a laugh about it himself. “They’re all back safe and sound, and didn’t need me anyway. Apparently it was pretty boring.”

Boring, he acknowledged, was probably what Afghanistan would not be. “It won’t be risk-free but then I didn’t join the Army thinking I was never going to go on operations. Nowadays, especially in the world we live in, it has got to that situation where people join the Army to almost go on operations and serve their country, to help in the little way that they can. And if that is spending six months in the Army and then your second six months in Afghanistan and then for the soldier to sign off after that, well I don’t see any problem with that at all.”

One the attractions of being posted to Afghanistan, Harry said, was it gave him the chance to be just a normal person, dressed in the same uniform as thousands of others, his face anonymous behind scarf and goggles. The anonymity was fantastic, he said.

Harry was confident — a belief now suddenly perhaps misplaced — that the secrecy of his posting would prevent him being a danger to his men.

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