An ex-soldier has revealed the unfortunate gaffe he made to Princess Diana in the midst of her break-up from Prince Charles.

Princess Diana

Princess Diana

The Princess visited a minefield in war-torn Angola five months after her break-up from her husband, but guide Paul Heslop made a cringe-worthy joke about her marriage without realising they had split.

Handing over a decommissioned mine, he quipped: "For God's sake, when you get home don't put this in Charles' bed."

But Paul insisted it was a completely honest mistake, pointing out that he had not visited the UK for 12 months and, therefore, was not up-to-speed with the status of their relationship.

He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Of course, at this point I didn't even realise the marriage was as troubled as it was, let alone over. I hadn't been in Britain for a year."

Thankfully for Paul, Diana - who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 - laughed the comment off rather than making him feel guilty about it.

Meanwhile, Prince William recently spoke about the death of his mother when he visited a bereavement centre run by Child Bereavement UK.

The 34-year-old royal is a patron of the charity - which strives to help families struggling with the loss of a child, or to help children facing their own bereavements - and spoke openly about his mother's passing at the event in London.

The future King was filmed comforting a nine-year-old girl - who had recently lost her father - by explaining that he "lost [his] mummy when [he] was very young too."

Speaking to the girl, who was named as Aoife, Prince William said: "Do you know what happened to me?

"You know I lost my mummy when I was very young too. I was 15 and my brother (Prince Harry) was 12. So we lost our mummy when we were young as well."

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