And with him thousands of well-wishers will be out to see him, people from all over the world will watch from afar and get a glimpse of our city, while our economy will get a much-needed boost and our drought-stricken farming community will be given the platform to tell the nation about their struggles.

This young fellow, whose official title is His Royal Highness, Prince Henry, the Duke of Sussex, brings a sense of statesmanship greater than any of our politicians, a degree of celebrity far more unique than any of our rock stars or actors and an endurance that is more sincere than many of our famous sportsmen and women.

What started out as a stab in the dark for council to attract Harry to Dubbo ended up as a masterstroke. Whatever the reason is, our monarchy brings people together. I’m not old enough to have witnessed the Queen’s early days of growing up and being crowned at just 25 years old.

However I certainly have recollections of Harry’s life. We remember the pictures of Harry and his older brother William enjoying his mother Diana’s unquestioned love for her two boys.

We witnessed from afar the live coverage of Diana’s funeral where two heartbroken yet brave young boys followed their mother’s funeral procession through the streets of London.  And few of us remained dried eyed when we saw Harry’s final letter to his mother simply addressed to “mummy” on the flowers atop of her casket.

We were able to see Harry go off to school, start his rowdy teens and get busted at a party being a little too tipsy in the nude! Funny enough, with that sort of behaviour one could be forgiven for thinking he was a boy from Dubbo.

Than we all saw this boy grow even larger in his role.  He has taken charge of many of his mother’s charities and most famously joined the army.  

It was his career in army that the world was privileged to witness the rise of a warrior prince. Scandal erupted when a magazine broke convention and revealed that Prince Harry, the Queen’s grandson, was secretly serving on the front line in Afghanistan in the line fire like any other unassuming soldier. The revelation by the magazine meant that the enemy knew a high target Prince was present. To Harry’s protest, he was ordered back to the UK in order to protect his unit.

In his greatest accomplishment Harry went on to found the Invictus Games, where wounded, injured or sick armed services personnel and associated veterans take part in multiple sports tournaments.

Harry’s hope is that these games will ensure our veterans are not forgotten and are used as a tool to help rehabilitate our injured warriors. In recent times we have been able to witness his courting of Meghan Markle, a Canadian actress. The world’s television attention was on our prince when he took his next step in life with his wedding to Meghan. Now only months later he will visit us in Dubbo.

The thought that Harry, this young fellow from England, who we all know and have witnessed his life from birth, will take his new bride on his first overseas tour here to Dubbo makes me prouder that I can even begin to describe.  The world will be watching Dubbo on October 17. Let’s all show our warrior prince our appreciation for his service and also how awesome our city really is.