Forty photos to mark Harry’s milestone 40th birthday

The Duke of Sussex reaches his milestone 40th birthday on Sunday.

In a statement to the BBC, Harry said he was “excited” about reaching the milestone, adding: “Whatever the age, my mission is to continue showing up and doing good in the world.”

Forty photos – one for every year of Harry’s life – have been compiled to mark the duke entering his fifth decade.

The pictures, brought together by the PA news agency, show the transition of the youngest son of the King and the late Diana, Princess of Wales from newborn baby to cheeky toddler and beyond.

He is seen as a soldier at war in Afghanistan, as a groom on his wedding day, and welcoming his first child Prince Archie.

Harry, who is said to be celebrating his birthday with Meghan and his children in California and then heading on a getaway with friends, was photographed as a mischievous three-year-old in 1987.

Opening his mouth wide, he stuck his tongue out at photographers as he passed in a car on his way to nursery.

In 1991, the six-year-old prince, with neatly combed hair and dressed in suit and tie, carried a large briefcase down the steps of a plane at Aberdeen airport, ahead of a summer break at Balmoral.

As a bashful 13-year-old, Harry met the Spice Girls on a trip to South Africa.

He posed for a photo with the singers, while Victoria Beckham, known as Posh Spice, held his hand.

And in 2003, he was pictured in his room at Eton, aged 18.

The prince was surrounded by posters – some of bikini-clad women – an England flag and a Mario Testino portrait of his late mother.

The collection of images also shows the prince on the day of his mother’s funeral.

A grieving 12-year-old Harry walked through the streets of London behind Diana’s coffin with his father Charles, his grandfather, the late Duke of Edinburgh, brother Prince William and uncle Earl Spencer after the princess’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997.

The duke’s love of all things military is evident.

In 1993, the eight-year-old played at being a soldier, dressed up in a khaki green uniform and navy beret, as he ran round a corner during a visit to the Light Dragoons in Hanover, Germany.

Fast forward nearly 20 years, and Harry was shown charging along as he responded to an alert and scrambled to his Apache in Camp Bastion while serving in the frontline in Afghanistan in 2012.

Harry was photographed aged 19 on a trip to Lesotho in southern Africa, holding hands with four-year-old orphan Mutsu Potsane – two years before founding the charity Sentebale.

In Jamaica in 2012, Harry, then 27, represented his grandmother the late Queen Elizabeth II on a Diamond Jubilee tour.

He carried out a charm offensive, dancing with the locals and running with Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt.

When he turned 30, Harry was still a working member of the royal family, carving out his role as the spare to the heir.

He had just staged his first Invictus Games in 2014 to much praise, with his father and brother the now-Prince of Wales at his side in support, and his stepmother the then-Duchess of Cornwall also turning out for the inaugural event.

The photos also highlight the lost bond between Harry and William.

In 1989, five-year-old Harry, in his new school blazer, cap and shorts, gazed up at his seven-year-old big brother on his first day at Wetherby pre-prep in 1989 as his mother Diana looked proudly on.

In 2017, when Harry was 32, the pair were seen laughing as they ran along a stadium race track with the now-Princess of Wales in 2017.

The trio were promoting their Heads Together mental health campaign in east London.

And in their twenties when Harry was 25, the brothers took a joint trip to Botswana.

They bantered while dealing with a rock python draped over their shoulders in the 2010 tour.

Their estrangement shows no sign of abating, with the duke also having a strained relationship with his father, now the King.

In 2022, William, Kate, Harry, then 37, and the Duchess of Sussex were pictured walking to meet members of the public at Windsor following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Kate reportedly told a senior royal the public show of unity “was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do” because of the depth of ill-feeling between the Waleses and the Sussexes.

The fallout is said to have begun before Harry’s 2018 wedding to American former actress Meghan, with the duke accusing William of being snobbish to his bride.

Harry and Meghan quit royal life in 2020 for new-found freedom in the US, where they live with children Archie and Princess Lilibet.

The duke, 35, is pictured hand in hand with Meghan in March of that year as they made their way into Westminster Abbey for their last official public royal engagement as working royals.

Harry is captured glancing down, while the duchess, in a vibrant green cape dress and hat, looks directly towards the cameras ahead of the Commonwealth Day service.

Harry’s relationship with his brother and father worsened after the public accusations he levelled at them and their wives in the Sussexes’ bombshell Oprah interview and Netflix documentary, as well as his tell-all memoir, Spare.

Since Harry moved to the US, the monarchy has witnessed the death of Elizabeth II, the start of Charles III’s reign and Camilla becoming Queen, with the King’s second year as sovereign rocked by his cancer diagnosis as well as that of his daughter-in-law, Kate.

Harry, who is pursuing a number of cases in the High Court, told an ITV documentary earlier this year that his determination to fight the tabloids over allegations of phone hacking was a “central piece” in destroying his relationship with his family.

The duke’s legal battle with the Home Office over his security while in the UK is meanwhile said to have frustrated the King.

The Waleses are concentrating on their family life and children amid Kate’s news earlier this week that she has finished her chemotherapy treatment.

The duke’s past year has seen the Sussexes undertake quasi-royal tours to Colombia and Nigeria, and Meghan start a new business venture with the soft launch of her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard when she sent limited edition strawberry jam to her friends.