美国国家公共电台 NPR Royal Wedding Reflects A Changing Britain（在线收听）

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Tomorrow morning, millions across the globe are expected to tune in for the royal wedding. There will be the pageantry that the British do oh-so well. As NPR's Frank Langfitt reports, there's another story behind this royal wedding, that of a changing Britain and the redemption of a wayward prince.

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: This is Windsor Castle, where tomorrow Prince Harry and former American actress Meghan Markle will wed. Now, right now it's a carnival atmosphere on the streets here. Some people have been sleeping out for several days so they can get a view of the carriage when the couple rides by. Harry, though, he's just sixth in line to the throne. And what's been interesting about this wedding is that his unconventional choice of a bride - Markle is biracial and divorced - has kind of struck a nerve in parts of Britain where normally the royals don't really resonate.

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LANGFITT: Like here in Peckham. It's a mixed-income London neighborhood with a big Afro-Caribbean population. Emma Jones sits in a salon having her hair done. Her dad came here from Trinidad in the '60s. And she says having the royals welcome someone of black heritage into the family means a lot.

EMMA JONES: If you look at royal history, and you look at how things are changing in terms of diversity, you know, the fact that Meghan Markle is - you know, she is going to be married to one of the princes, that's massive. At the end of the day, I think it's important for me as a woman of color to be able to identify with the leadership in this country.

LANGFITT: Down the street at the barbershop, Mike Oke says he's especially interested in the wedding because he loves Prince Harry, who, along with the queen, is one of the most popular royals. Oke sees Harry as cool and approachable.

MIKE OKE: He's wicked, just like - it's a free air. It's like a wind. It blows, cool you down. If you're upset, it cools you down. Harry's - he's fun guy.

LANGFITT: Prince Harry has come a long way. He lost his mother, Princess Diana, in a car crash in Paris when he was just a kid. As a young man, he loved to party but sometimes embarrassed the royals.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It happened in Vegas. Britain's Prince Harry photographed here in the nude after a reported game of strip pool in...

LANGFITT: But by all accounts, Harry, who's now 33, has grown up. He served as a soldier in Afghanistan and began promoting a most un-royal cause, mental health. He came clean about his own pain on a podcast last year for London's Telegraph newspaper.

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PRINCE HENRY WINDSOR: I can safely that losing my mom at the age of 12 and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years has had a quite serious effect. All of a sudden, all of this grief that I've never processed has come to the forefront. I was like, there's actually a lot of stuff here I need to deal with.

LANGFITT: The arc of his life seems only to have endeared him more to people here.

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LANGFITT: Mary Brazier is meeting with her neighbors in suburban London to organize a block party to celebrate the royal wedding. Given Harry's past struggles, which include his mother's disastrous marriage to Prince Charles, Brazier says marrying another aristocrat would have made no sense.

MARY BRAZIER: It was never going to happen because he has emotions, and he's not interested in an aloof, cold relationship. He wants to live his life.

LANGFITT: The wedding plans have been marred by last-minute drama in Markle's family. Her estranged half-brother wrote an open letter to Prince Harry telling him not to marry her. Markle's father, Thomas, has decided not to attend, reportedly because of heart surgery and embarrassment over selling photos to the paparazzi, whom the royal family hate. But that hasn't affected Mary Brazier's opinion of her.

BRAZIER: It's normal, isn't it? You've got some embarrassing members of your family. I think it's been sadly sensationalized.

LANGFITT: The last two years have been tough here in the United Kingdom. The country suffered a series of terror attacks and remains bitterly divided over Brexit. Tomorrow, some people are just looking forward to the spectacle of a British royal wedding. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Windsor.

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