After completing her chemotherapy treatment, the Princess of Wales could have been forgiven for easing herself slowly and gently back into royal duties.
Instead, for her first official public engagement, she headed to Southport to show the local community they had ‘not been forgotten’ after the town’s devastating knife attack. Pushing her own problems aside, Kate, spent 90 minutes chatting to the bereft families of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, who were killed in the tragedy. Afterwards she openly hugged and thanked the ‘hero’ emergency workers for their efforts that terrible day.
By anyone’s standards, it was an emotionally challenging return to public life but she was determined, alongside Prince William, to show her ‘support, empathy and compassion’.
One royal expert who’s not surprised to see Kate’s strong, caring streak emerge again following her shock cancer announcement last March, is the BBC’s former royal correspondent Jennie Bond. She tells Yours, ‘I think she’s a really good, kind‑hearted person and she genuinely wants to change what she can to make people’s lives better.
‘She’s a strong woman and I think that cancer has made her even stronger. It’s very hard not to sound all gushing about her. I do think she’s a very beautiful person. She must have some bad points, but she does seem practically perfect in every way!’ adds Jennie.
‘I can’t think where she puts a step wrong and she does seem to be genuinely empathetic and compassionate particularly with children.’
As a mum of three herself, Kate has displayed her maternal side time after time. Even during her cancer treatment last summer she made sure George, 11, Charlotte, nine, and Louis, six, had a summer of fun complete with foam gun battles, bicycle ride and picnics.
But her devotion to children spreads much wider than her own brood and her major focus since her illness has been on supporting children’s and cancer charities.
Now officially in remission, she’s spoken about ‘looking forward to a fulfilling year ahead’ while remaining focused on recovery. She has warned, though, that illness has given her a new ‘perspective on everything’. And we’ve already seen how she wants to be taken seriously for her work not her wardrobe this year by her decision to stop sharing details of her outfits with the press.
In recent weeks we’ve seen her return to the Royal Marsden Hospital on an unannounced visit to thank staff who cared for her there. She’s visited a mum and baby unit in HMP Styal and continued to raise awareness about the importance of early childhood experiences through her Shaping Us campaign.
She’s also spoken to female prisoners and cancer patients and paid her respects at the recent 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
‘It’s quite a difficult path to tread but she’s perfected the art of appearing quite regal at times or kneeling down with the kids,’ adds Jennie Bond. She reminds us that Princess Diana, the mother-in-law Kate never met but who she believes she would have got along with, first broke royal tradition by showing her more emotional ‘Queen of People’s Hearts’ side. Although it was a phrase she regretted, Diana ‘really changed things’, according to Jennie. She believes that Kate will continue to follow that path and, when she does eventually become Queen, it will stand her in good stead.
‘She has got a big heart and I think it will be her best asset,’ she says. Though she refuses to speculate when Kate and William might succeed the throne, she does not believe King Charles will abdicate. Charles and Kate have a famously close bond and are often pictured supporting each other and sharing a joke. It’s believed that she calls him ‘grandpa’ while he calls her his ‘beloved daughter-in-law’.
Whenever the next coronation takes place, Jennie predicts Kate is going to be ‘a different kind of Queen’ albeit a ‘strong, campaigning and popular’ one. ‘She won’t stand for just being a figurehead. She will want to bring practical solutions to problems and be campaigning for what she believes in. It’s not different to Camilla but it is different to the late Queen in that she is really quite an authority now on early years development because she’s given herself the time to develop her knowledge.’
‘I’m a huge admirer of hers and I’m not a head-over-heels monarchist. I think it’s a system that actually works but I love politics and I wouldn’t mind a President. But I think she is going to be an excellent role model; an excellent Queen and she has all the attributes that are needed for it.’
‘She’s drop-dead gorgeous and she’s in love with her husband. They are brilliant together and it’s a pretty equal partnership. If William attends something that is her domain, he will sit back and let her take the lead.
‘She’s undoubtedly the star of the royal family at the moment and will continue to be so.’