This is the image that records one of the most heartwarming moments on Prince Harry’s current tour of New Zealand.
It had been 18 years since Prince Harry last saw his old school matron Vicki McBratney, the woman who comforted him after the death of his mother, Princess Diana. The surprised Prince recognised her immediately on the streets of Christchurch yesterday.
Prince Harry, 30, was greeting crowds at the University of Canterbury when he picked McBratney out of the crowd.
“Hello! Nice to see you, how are you?” he asked the mother of three – then reached in to give her a royal hug.
On September 6 1997, English-born Ms McBratney started working as a matron at the prestigious Ludgrove School in Wokingham, England. It was the day of Princess Diana's funeral. She was charged with looking after the young, heartbroken Prince Harry.
Two weeks earlier the world had gone into mourning following the sudden death of 'The People's Princess' in a high-speed car accident in Paris.
Princess Diana was 36. Harry was just 13 and in his second year of high school.
Like Prince Harry, Vicki McBratney had lost her mother at a young age, so she knew what the Prince was going through when he returned to boarding school. As matron she was able to offer support and advice that nobody else at The Ludgrove School could. According to the Sydney Morning Herald they bonded over "late night chats and hot chocolates."
Following her time at Ludgrove, McBratney moved to New Zealand to start a family and has remained there since.
Knowing her former charge would be in Christchurch yesterday, the former matron arrived two hours earlier with her three children and husband to see the fifth-in-line to the throne, who she described as "cheeky" and "funny".
After the pair had briefly caught up, McBratney handed the Prince an old photo she had of them, to which Harry responded: "Oh no...!" .
The Prince then met her children and her husband, chatting to the family briefly.
Following the encounter McBratney told the media swarm she was "happy he recognised me".
"I'm so glad the kids met him. And he remembered me, which was really nice," she said.