While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex enjoyed their first festive season together in California, Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank took advantage of the peace and quiet of Frogmore Cottage, which Harry and Meghan have lent to them while they await the birth of their first child.
When the Sussexes are able to visit, they have said they will share Frogmore Cottage, which has enough bedrooms and bathrooms to accommodate them all. It appears to be a generous offer for Eugenie and Jack, who can pay the running costs, and it will avoid the house being left empty over the winter months.
In November, Meghan wrote in The New York Times about her suffering a miscarriage the previous July. She was praised by multiple women’s groups for helping to eliminate the taboo surrounding miscarriage by speaking out about her own traumatic experience.
Prince Harry, proud of his wife for her brave admission, has been concentrating his energies on his mission towards preserving the planet. In December he made an impassioned speech to mark the launch of WaterBear, a Netflix-style platform for environmental and conservation documentaries. Peppering his video speech with ‘woke’ references, the prince said the natural world needed doers and likened the human race to raindrops to emphasise his point.
'Every single raindrop that falls from the sky relieves the parched ground.’ he said. ‘What if every single one of us was a raindrop, and if every single one of us cared?’
Whatever their differences, both Harry and William are champions of the environment and while Harry was launching WaterBear in the United States William was paying tribute to Africa’s leading wildlife protectors from London as part of the virtual Tusk Conservation Awards. It is good to know how much they care about the planet’s future in their individual ways.
Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales has launched a sustainable fashion range to combat the growth of fast fashion. The collection was designed in Italy and made by artisan students learning textile skills at the Prince’s Foundation at Dumfries House. Charles, who prides himself on wearing classic and well-made clothes, spoke of his ‘horror’ at the ‘extraordinary trend’ of throwaway clothing. The prince is lucky to have people to expertly repair his garments and even had his wife’s couturier, Roy Allen, mend his late grandfather King George VI’s silk pocket handkerchiefs so he can wear them himself.
The scandal surrounding the BBC inquiry headed by former Supreme Court judge Lord Dyson into allegations of deceit surrounding the Princess of Wales’s Panorama interview 25 years ago has the support of William, Harry and their uncle, Lord Spencer. Although they acknowledge the independent investigation is a step in the right direction, whatever the outcome it will change nothing about the heartache caused at the time.
Prince Charles, Prince William and now Princess Michael of Kent have all had Covid-19, but we are pleased to report the princess, who contracted the virus in November, has recovered and will hopefully enjoy her 76th birthday on 15 January.
