Prince William appeared in a video with members of the HMS Oardacious charity to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.
On 21 May, the Prince and Princess of Wales’s YouTube account published a six-minute clip in which the heir to the throne rows and talks about mental health with members of the charity.
The video was shot at the Eton rowing club, on Dorney Lake, in Windsor, and it begins with the Prince being welcomed by Lieutenant Commander Hugo Mitchell-Heggs, one of the founders of HMS Oardacious.
The Lieutenant then introduced Prince William to the rest of the team: Lieutenant Izzy Rawlinson, Chief Petty Officer John Norfolk, and Lieutenant Commander Callum Fraser.
The four military personnel then jumped in their rowing boat with the Prince, who sat in the middle rowing position and started chatting with them, asking questions about their future mission and the mental health issues and challenges behind it.
Once back on land, the five of them are seen inside a building, where the more serious part of the conversation took place. Lt Com Mitchell-Heggs revealed that he was diagnosed with PTSD two years ago and that it was crucial for him to have access to support tools, which opened a lot of new horizons for him.
He said: “I think people who knew me didn’t realise that’s how I felt because I was just going around my normal day, cracking a funny joke,” to which Prince William replied: “We hide it well, don’t we, all of us.”
Lt Rawlinson then explained the mental toll of being the future captain of the first all-women military team to row across the Atlantic next year: “I want to present a front that people want to get behind, including the crew and the girls, and I really want to support them. And so I’m very nervous that I don’t present that in the best way possible. I really want to be something that they’ll be proud of.”
Lt Com Mitchell-Heggs then concluded the conversation by telling the Prince of Wales that, when he needs to get through something, he thinks: “It’s okay not to be okay. It’s not a chink in my armour just because I feel bad now. I haven’t failed. I haven’t lost. It’s not over. This is just the step-by-step process.”
HMS Oardacious is a charity founded in 2019 by service members of the Royal Navy, with the aim of providing mental health support to military personnel, and specifically to Navy submariners.
Since then, their signature fundraisers have been rowing races across the Atlantic Ocean, starting from San Sebastian (La Gomera) to the Canary Islands, and all the way to Nelsons Dockyard in Antigua, totalling 4800 kilometres, or 3000 miles.
If you are experiencing mental health issues, there are resources to help. Heads Together has partnered with several services, all of which can be found here.