The Prince of Wales said Princess Diana “would talk to us” about rough sleeping when he and Prince Harry were young.

He said: “The first few times I thought ‘do I bring this up or should I wait to see if they notice?’

“Sure enough, they did. They were sort of in silence when I said what was going on.”

The prince also told ITV that Diana would talk to them about homelessness when he and Prince Harry were children.

“When you are that small you are just curious and trying to work out what’s going on,” he said.

“You ask the question ‘why are they sitting there?’ My mother would talk to us a bit about why they were there and it definitely made a really big impact.”

Image:Prince William visited homelessness charities and shelters with Princess Diana as a child. Pic: The Passage

Prince William on leading homelessness project

Filmed over the last year, the documentary follows William and his Homewards initiative, which aims to eradicate homelessness and make it “rare, brief and unrepeated”.

The royal launched the five-year scheme in June 2023, with six locations – Newport, Lambeth, Aberdeen, Belfast, Sheffield, and Dorset’s Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch – chosen for the initiative.

William also said in the documentary: “There has to be a better way than just accepting that homelessness is there and we just live with it. I don’t believe that. I won’t accept that.”

Where his deeply held conviction to help the homeless began

They are pictures that give an insight into a side of Prince William’s very public childhood that the world didn’t see at the time.

The photos of him alongside his mother at The Passage only released now serve to remind us of where that deeply held conviction to try to do something about homelessness all began.

They form part of a two-part documentary you’ll get to see this week.

Billed as showing Prince William as you’ve never seen him before, I’ve watched it and I’m not sure it quite lives up to that hype – but maybe that’s because I’ve been fortunate enough to watch him on so many engagements before, to see how he listens and empathises with people especially on issues like this.

What the programme does do is bring to a prime-time audience some heartbreaking stories of what homelessness looks like in 2024.

And for that reason, the palace and the prince will see it as a success for his Homewards project.

For the first time, he also fronts up about why he feels he can make a difference, despite his privileged royal life.

You see how much his outlook was shaped by his mother in those early years of his life, but also how, like his father, he wants to make sure his time as heir really counts.

In another clip from the documentary, the prince also defended his work trying to tackle homelessness despite criticism for being a member of the Royal Family.

Anti-monarchy campaigners Republic previously suggested his involvement in the issue was at odds with his privileged position and the number of properties that he has access to as a royal.

William said he comes “with no other agenda than desperately trying to help people who are in need”, and added he sees the initiative as “part of my role”.

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness airs on 30 and 31 October at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX, STV and STV Player.