According to her former bodyguard, Diana, Princess of Wales would often give away some of Prince William and Prince Harry’s Christmas presents away for a special reason

Diana, Princess of Wales had a clever plan for presents given to her son (Image: Getty)

But while those gifts are pure family fun, the Royal Family also receive hundreds of gifts and tokens every year from members of the public. And according to Diana’s former bodyguard, the late princess had a genius tactic to keep her sons’ feet on the ground.

Prince William and Prince Harry’s mum had a genius tactic at Christmas ( Image: Getty Images)

Diana is often praised for the excellent mother she was to Prince William and Prince Harry. She often took them to private charity visits and on normal days out as she wanted them to live without the restrictions of strict royal protocol.

Her biographer, Andrew Morton said: “She took the young royals with her on her private charity visits from a young age – one of the reasons was she didn’t want the boys to grow up thinking the whole world was 4×4 Range Rovers, shotguns and nannies.”

And this sense of normality extended to the festive period. According to a close former member of the late Princess of Wales’s staff, Diana would restrict the number of presents her children received.

Diana, Princess of Wales is often praised for being an excellent mother ( Image: 2007 Getty Images)

According to her former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, she would sometimes return gifts that people would send to them or donate them to charity. Mr Wharfe explained that Christmas gifts would show up at the palace for Princes William and Harry from unknown sources.

The bodyguard previously told OK!, “Diana was very careful to ensure that they weren’t flooded with gifts – gifts did appear from unknown sources, and they were often returned or given to charity because they didn’t need them.

She was very conscious about what she bought as she knew the hallway at Sandringham would be full of presents.”

Diana, Princess of Wales was famed for her love of a prank ( Image: 2007 Getty Images)Don’t Miss

While Diana would restrict the number of gifts her sons received, she certainly had a taste for buying them hilarious presents herself.

According to former royal butler Paul Burrell, one Christmas the royal prankster bought her youngest son a very naughty stocking filler which he loved. He explained: “She’d spend hours looking for jokey things for their stockings. One year, Harry got fake dog poo.”

He also said how Harry not only loved the gift, but that he had a very cheeky plan on how he was going to use it – he wanted to trick his dog-obsessed grandmother with it.