Stop whingeing, Harry. It’s great to be the spare, writes MARK PALMER

The title of your £28 per copy book, which will be published on 10 January, has come under widespread scrutiny. And for good reason. You chose to call it “Spare,” no doubt in reference to the phrase “an heir and a spare,” coined in the 1890s by American socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt.

In your case – and this is an impression reinforced by your somber expression on the cover – the word has a disturbing connotation. And they all smell of self-pity. Excess requirements; leave in the cold.

The Spanish version of your volume is subtitled En La Sombra: ‘in the shadows’. Others — and congratulations on getting translations into 16 languages ​​— refer to “Leftover” and even “Reservist.”

All this has led me to write to you. For in a much less grand or significant way, I am also a spare. But I’ve never felt ‘in the shadows’ — and certainly didn’t consider myself a ‘surplus’.

Like you, I have a brother, born in my case three years before me. His name is Adrian and he was always the heir. He inherited the title, Lord Palmer, some 30 years ago, and sits as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords.

He also inherited a stately home in the Scottish Borders called Manderston, remodeled in 1905 by Edwardian architect John Kinross (complete with the world’s only silver staircase), plus 1,200 acres of farmland, a marble dairy, stables (described by Horse and Hound magazine as ‘perhaps the most beautiful in the world’), a lake and 60 acres of formal gardens.

As far as I know, my brother receives about £300 a day just for appearing in the House of Lords and has paid for the support of a secretary at the Palace of Westminster from the state coffers. He is a hereditary fellow, who was chosen by fellow heirs who avoided the chop when Tony Blair was Prime Minister.

And I’m the spare. Or at least I was until Adrian had two sons (plus a daughter) of his own. But it never occurred to me to feel angry about this, as you clearly do. On the contrary, it was as it was. The cards had been dealt.

And here’s the point, Harry. The spare was, gave me a freedom my brother never had. I could become a journalist – and am now the travel editor of this newspaper, lucky enough to travel far.

In a similar way, as the Windsor ‘reserve’, you had the freedom to plow your own furrows: first by joining the army and showing real bravery in Afghanistan (an opportunity your older brother could reasonably have denied) and later in the sunny California highlands.

Mark Palmer, 18, (right) with his brother Adrian, 21 (left). PALMER: ‘Like you, I have a brother, in my case born three years before me. His name is Adrian and he was always the heir’

You made those choices. No one forced you to – even if your wife, Meghan, may have helped lead you to a new life across the pond. Yet you feel sad and have now written about your oh-so-horrific fate with “raw, unshakable honesty,” as your publisher Penguin Random House puts it.

This is all so sad. Trust me, there are many benefits to being a reserve, each unique to a particular family.

My brother and many of those who have known us over the years would say that I was our mother’s favorite: that she praised me more than him. And it was praise I barely deserved, given some of the choices I made.

The same happened to you. You were Britain’s favorite prince for a long time. We took you close to our hearts and forgive the strange indiscretion when you were caught falling out of a half-cut nightclub or when you occasionally sunk because you were constantly in the public eye.

We loved your cheeky spirit. You came across as sober, with a sense of mischief – and we were well aware of the pain, at such a young age, you suffered in the death of your mother. We were on your side.

Most of all, we believed your heart was in the right place — until, that is, Meghan came along and captured it.

But here’s the problem, we took her too. She was welcomed by most of the country and considered a breath of fresh air. Her race wasn’t an issue, despite all the complaints you both made on Oprah Winfrey’s couch. She had, you insisted, made you happy—and that was all we wanted to see.

You don’t look happy right now. And yesterday we read the results of a new poll showing that only the disgraced Prince Andrew – that friend of a serial pedophile – ranks lower in the royal affections of the British public than you and Meghan. (Your older brother — and what a crackle this must have! — is the nation’s perennial favorite, even more so than the king.) Spares who are constantly bemoaning their lives can quickly fall out of public favor.

May I humbly suggest that you consider the plight of Prince Carl Philip of Sweden. He was the heir to the Swedish throne for the first seven months of his life – and then in 1980 the constitution changed so that the firstborn, regardless of gender, would accede. That makes his sister, Victoria, the heir.

In addition, Carl Philip received some criticism for marrying a former glamor model in 2015, who once posed topless for a boys’ magazine. But he didn’t do a runner.

Then, in an effort to downsize the monarchy, King Carl XVI Gustaf decreed that Carl Philip’s two sons would no longer have royal status at all.

It’s admirable that Carl Philip turned everything upside down and even said the decision would open new doors for his boys. More examples of uncomplaining spare parts can be found in the other European royal families. NB.

Let me tell you, as a fellow spare: your general attitude doesn’t help your cause. It smells like ‘poor me’: as if you suffered from having an older brother or sister, as if you had to live on leftovers. But you don’t.

Unlike many second-borns, you never had to rely on cast-offs from your big brother. You never had a first-class education because your parents couldn’t afford two sets of school fees. Instead, you made your own future within the confines of royal life, discovered enormous success with programs like the Invictus Games – and then “found complete freedom” thousands of miles away in Montecito.

So, instead of dwelling on the negatives and constantly stating your grievances, think how lucky you have been. You may have been the ‘reserve’ (until Prince George came), but you were never spared all the privileges that came with being third in line to the throne.

You were not denied the education, the expensive ski holidays, the African safaris, the polo on pedigree ponies, the best seats in the house at rugby and football matches or a financial allowance most people can only dream of.

So, for God’s sake, stop it – and save us all the nagging about being a spare.

If you’ll be honest with me, the title of your book is misleading at best and downright insulting at worst to all of us ‘spare parts’ – who have found curious comfort in the second place.

yours ever,

Marking