Boys to Men

Thursday May 24, 2007 12:00 PM EDT

Diana (with Harry and Will at a British amusement park in '93) wanted her sons "to really see how people lived," says her friend Vivienne Parry.

Cassidy and Leigh/REX

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An overlooked moment in the storied annals of England – the night the Windsors ate at Sticky Fingers. A London burger spot owned by ex-Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, the eatery played host to Princess Diana and her young sons William and Harry. Their dad, Prince Charles, wasn't a fan of such places "because he didn't like the food," recalls Ken Wharfe, Diana's former bodyguard. But Mom and the boys had a blast. "That's where kids of that age would eat, and that's what Diana wanted her kids to do," says Wharfe. "It wasn't the food that mattered, it was the experience."

This was the magic of Princess Diana, a woman burdened by impossible fame yet beloved the world over for her common touch. Nowhere was this more evident than in the way she raised her sons, sharing with them her joyful spirit, showing them the world's beauty and its pain, wishing for them a future filled with love and normalcy. And Will and Harry basked in her affection, as if when they were with her they weren't royals at all but rather just boys and their mum. One time, "William asked, 'Can we go on a bus?' so we all hopped on one and later got on the tube," remembers Wharfe. "Not for a minute did anyone think they'd see the Princess of Wales and her son on the Piccadilly line. But that's what Diana was like."

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