he said he was entitled to privacy, too. In another unusually frank exchange, he aimed biting criticism at the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, three of the royal family’s most ardent supporters in Fleet Street. He said he was particularly annoyed by articles comparing his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews waiting to scramble during the second world war. “No, it’s not like that at all,” he said. The prince said his suspicion of the media was rooted in the treatment of his family when “I was very small”, but that he couldn’t help monitoring the stories written about him. “Of course I read them,” the prince said. “If there’s a story and something’s been written about me, I want to know what’s being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do; not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, 'Don’t read it'. Everyone says, 'Don’t read it, because it’s always rubbish'.” The prince was posted to Afghanistan last September to command a £45m Apache helicopter – one of the military’s most sophisticated and well-armed aircraft. During his tour, the Apaches flew missions supporting NATO troops fighting the Taliban and accompanied British Chinook and US Black Hawk medical helicopters during casualty