RICHARD KAY: Of all the broken relationships that have marked Meghan and Prince Harry’s life since their split from the Royal Family, the cruellest, surely, is how they discarded the duchess’s father, Tom Markle

FIVE birthdays have come and gone for Thomas Markle since he last spoke to his daughter Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Today, July 18, is the sixth. He is 78, an age when a man likes his affairs to be in order.

But for Mr Markle the rift with the girl he used to bring into the Hollywood studios where he rigged lighting for some of the most popular shows on network television is as deep today as it has ever been.

Of all the broken relationships that have marked Meghan and Prince Harry’s life since their split from the Royal Family, the cruellest, surely, is how they discarded the duchess’s father.

There have been no sophisticated palace operation or soothing words to protect the elderly Tom Markle as there have, say, for Prince William or his father King Charles. Mr Markle has had to cope alone.

No wonder his public outbursts at his treatment have been bitter. But there is a sadness to the bitterness, a regret at what might have been. Not only has he never met his son in law but he has also been robbed of his role as grandfather to Archie and Lilibet.

Today, it is little more than a year since Mr Markle lay gravely ill, unable to speak following a stroke. This is how Richard Kay described the situation at the time. 

How different things could have been, not just for Thomas Markle but for Prince Harry, too. 

Far from home, having the kindly figure of his father-in-law to turn to might have provided Harry with the stability he has so plainly been lacking since abandoning his own family.

And who better than Mr Markle to guide him in the realities of life in a mixed race marriage. But none of this wisdom has been available to Harry. Instead their relationship has been one of sour mistrust.

It has hardly helped that Mr Markle has offered his own uncompromising views of his daughter and her husband. Accusing Harry of being ‘snotty’ and an ‘idiot’ who is ‘whipped’ by Meghan was never likely to endear him to his son-in-law. 

Even so, this cannot excuse Harry’s own behaviour. The roots of this unhappiness lie in the weeks leading up to Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding in 2018. 

Mr Markle was revealed to have collaborated with a paparazzi photographer in staging pictures of him preparing for the marriage ceremony, from reading up on British history to being measured up for a wedding suit.

Prince Harry and new bride Meghan leave their 2018 wedding at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Her father Thomas Markle had suffered a heart attack and was unable to attend

Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, wave from their carriage in a procession through Windsor following the ceremony

Harry and Meghan with their first child, Archie Mountbatten. Archie has never met his grandfather, Thomas Markle

It was naïve, foolish even but hardly wilful. The irony was that this act of invading his own privacy came at the very time Palace officials were sending strict warnings to the media not to harass him.

Indeed, it was hard not to escape the conclusion that royal advisers had failed to realise that this lonely but thoroughly decent man would struggle to deal with the enormity of his daughter marrying into Britain’s Royal Family.

It seemed then — and it seems now — remarkable that proper efforts were not put in place to prepare Mr Markle for the news, providing an aide to brief him or better still flying him to London and accommodating him in a royal home where he could have acclimatised ahead of the wedding.

But perhaps the most baffling failure of all was Harry’s. Even now, four years later, it is hard to understand why Harry did not meet his girlfriend’s father in person, as any prospective son-in-law would do.

There must have been countless opportunities for Harry (and Meghan) to have paid a private visit to her father — long before he started giving interviews.

By the eve of the wedding, when Thomas revealed he was pulling out of giving his daughter away because of heart problems, the relationship between the two men was turning toxic.

Mr Markle said he had hung up on Harry during a heated telephone call. Although he accepted the Prince had every right to reprimand him over the staged photographs, he described the timing of the call as ‘rude’.

While admitting he had lied about the incident, he added: ‘There is a time and place to say what he said but not when I’m lying in hospital after a heart attack.’ He claimed he had ended the call after telling the Prince: ‘Maybe it would be better for you guys if I was dead… then you could pretend to be sad.’ Resentment had been bubbling for some time.

He claimed that when the couple’s engagement was disclosed, two representatives from the British consulate in Los Angeles had visited the home of his ex-wife Doria Ragland — Meghan’s mother — to present her with a copy of the official scroll bearing the Queen’s announcement.

‘No one came to my door in Mexico,’ he complained. ‘I would have liked the engagement announcement, too.’

Petulant maybe but perfectly understandable.

Meghan and her parents, Tom and Doria, are pictured together in happier times

The Sussexes and Cambridges put on a show of unity following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The relationship between the couples is badly fractured – but Thomas Markle has been cut out completely. 

The Duke and Duchess stand by the Wellington Arch as they attend the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

Yet by the time of the Duke and Duchess’s interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, Meghan described the fake pictures episode as feeling like a ‘betrayal’.

She said she had asked her father directly if he had talked to tabloid newspapers (over the pictures) and he had replied: ‘No, absolutely not.’ She said she told him that ‘if you tell me the truth we can help’. According to Meghan her father ‘wasn’t able to do that’ and she described his refusal to answer as ‘so hard for me to reconcile’.

By the time of the interview, of course, the couple had already long slammed the door shut in Mr Markle’s face.

Even so rather than seeking a reconciliation, the relationship unravelled further.

In December 2018, Thomas claimed he had been ‘ghosted’ by his daughter and that she had not responded to the countless attempts he had made to contact her. The situation deteriorated even more when details of a handwritten letter she had sent him were revealed by The Mail on Sunday.

The Duchess sued the newspaper for reproducing parts of the ‘personal and private’ letter and it paid damages for infringing her copyright.

Even then a rapprochement might still have been possible. Thomas longs to see his two grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet.

It is not just three lives damaged by this escalating tragedy, now there are five divided by this bitter disagreement.

Harry has spoken of how sad it was that his mother Princess Diana never knew Meghan. How much sadder it will be if he never gets to know Meghan’s father.

Just imagine how much he could learn about fatherhood from the man who displayed a unique approach to teaching his daughter about her mixed-race heritage. Meghan proudly recalled how one Christmas Day she had opened a present containing a set of Barbie dolls, specially customised by Thomas to reflect her family — one black doll and one white.

The Duchess and Duke of Sussex at the 2022 Invictus Games. They seem determined to press ahead without Thomas Markle in their lives 

Meghan, her mother Doria and Harry celebrate Archie’s first birthday

After her parents’ divorce in 1987 the young Meghan lived with her mother but continued to spend time with her father who often brought her in to the TV studios where he was working.

When he won money in the California State Lottery in 1990 Thomas invested some but spent most of it on his children — Thomas junior and Samantha by an earlier marriage — and paid for Meghan to attend a Catholic high school.

These were formative years for Meghan when she mainly lived with her father. Of course, Doria has been able to tell the Prince something of Meghan’s childhood but a complete picture needs to involve her father, too.

Is it really too late for Harry to put the past behind him and reach out to Mr Markle? I don’t think so — but if he does not I fear he may come to regret it.