Prince Harry and Prince William’s former bodyguard, Graham “Crackers” Craker, has died at age 77.
The former royal staffer stood alongside the brothers during a particularly vulnerable time in their lives, serving as their personal protection officer at the time of the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997.
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Craker’s sons Graham and James confirmed their father’s deaths on social media, as per the BBC, writing in a tribute, “He was an incredible man – our hero, our rock – and meant everything to us.” They continued, “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.” The family has not confirmed Craker’s cause of death.
Prince Harry previously spoke of Craker in his 2023 memoir Spare, writing of him fondly as he shared his recollection of his mother’s funeral. “The driver had to keep pulling over so the bodyguard could get out and clear the flowers off the windscreen,” the Duke of Sussex wrote. “The bodyguard was Graham. Willy and I liked him a lot. We always called him Crackers, as in Graham Crackers. We thought it was hysterical.”
Craker also spoke about the funeral procession in the 2017 documentary Diana: The Day We Said Goodbye, saying, “Most of the time it was almost as if it was raining flowers. It was very poignant knowing that each of those flowers represents the emotions of somebody in the crowd.”
“We tried using the windscreen wipers but the driver was finding it quite hard to see,” he remembered. “I called the motorcycle escort in front and said we need to stop. I took the flowers off the bonnet and laid them beside the road.”
Craker was with the young brothers at Balmoral when the royal family learned the devastating news of Princess Diana’s death. “I crept down the stairs to the house phone and dialed the duty office at Buckingham Palace,” he said in an interview following his retirement, as per The Telegraph. “They said there were reports there’d been an accident and Dodi Fayed had been killed and the Princess had a broken arm.”
“It was disbelief, really, and obviously a great deal of sorrow,” he added. “You try and deal with it as best you can but you do get quite emotional about it.”
Craker served with the Metropolitan Police for 35 years and worked as a royal bodyguard for a total of 15 years before retiring in 2001. The late monarch Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the Royal Victorian Order and also made him a Freeman of the City of London before her death.
