A SOLEMN Prince Charles mourned his friend and mentor, Sir Laurens van der Post, yesterday.
The prince, who comforted Sir Laurens's close family, attended a funeral service for the South African-horn writer and explorer described as his "spiritual guru" and godfather to Prince William.
The handwritten card on the prince's yellow and white wreath read: "For Dear Laurens. With everlasting gratitude and affection - always. Charles."
Sir Laurens died at the age of 90 at his London home early on Monday after his heart failed.
Prince Charles, who had planned a 90th birthday party for Sir Laurens at his Gloucestershire country home last Friday, was at Sir Laurens's bedside late on Sunday night.
Prince Charles was escorted into Christ Church, an early-Victorian building in a fashionable Chelsea street, by Sir Laurens's daughter, Mrs Lucia Crichton-Miller.
Tea minutes later, after a choral prelude, pallbearers carried the plain coffin covered in red and white roses into the church.
Mrs Crichton-Miller led the mourners, followed by Sir Laurens's six grandchildren.
Sir Laurens was "one of the most remarkable human beings of our century", his American publisher, Mr Lawrence Hughes, told the loo mourners.
A quotation from About Blady by Sir Laurens, included in the order of service, illustrated the prolific writer's exploration of the psyche: "There has perhaps never been a moment when the importance of `being' is so neglected in the general preoccupation with `doing', and when there is no realisation, at heart, of the unfolding of the human spirit which truth demands.
"The truth yields to nothing except growth; it has no method which does not correspond to the `method of the rose' - which is but to grow."
The first reading, in Afrikaans, by Sir Laurens's nephew, Mr Thomas Bedford, was a reminder of the writer's roots.
The mourners sang the hymns He who would Valiant Be by John Bunyan, Morning has Broken and Abide with Ale, and Psalm 23, The Lord's my Shepherd.
The Rev Thomas Hiney described Sir Laurens as a visionary, poet, soldier, sage, an inspiration, and explorer of land and the human spirit.
A cremation service was held later at Putney Vale in south-west London.