There’s money to be made, celebrity and fame to be found. Ordinary people doing what ordinary people do given an opportunity.
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The secrecy fed the speculation and while the royals should have some privacy they employ teams to manage their affairs and PR. They failed spectacularly.
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I agree. “Nature abhors a vacuum”. I think tragically the original lack of clarity was a missed opportunity. I had an early hysterectomy and at the time it was something no one talked about because it was a “woman’s thing”. So I had no positive role models, no discussion, not even with my mother who had had one, but of course that was the 1940s and you really didn’t talk about “stuff like that”.
And there was a need for a conversation with someone who understood what I was going through. I had never been maternal, but then suddenly I found I was grieving that I would never have the chance to have children. My surgeon implanted an HRT implant during the op and I only learnt he had done so afterwards - where was patient consent? But I knew no better.
(Assuming it was a hysterectomy) then all the palace needed to do was say so. Then immediately there could have been an adult useful conversation in the media about the implications, what women need to know going through it and another part of the life of being a woman would have become a non-issue.
By the way, if it was treatment due to Crohn’s disease or diverticulitis my point still stands. Both conditions need better understanding and more openness.
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I think the only failure in all this lies with an insatiable public having failed to take the high road.
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I had a friend during the early 1980s. She was in her early twenties, engaged to be married the following May and in the Navy. Two months after being diagnosed with cervical cancer, she died.
Before that she completely closed in on herself, wanted no one to know and no one discussing.
Instead of a wedding there was a funeral. Everyone handles tragedy in their own way. We shouldn’t try to tell anyone else how to behave, especially when it really is not our business.
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This is where the lines blur for the royals - they belong to the British people just as Britain belongs to them. Breaking the contract is a key reason H&M are pariahs. As a royal your right to privacy is, to a degree, suspended as the article you linked to suggested, and can’t easily be turned on and off.
20:20 hindsight this could have been managed much better. I hope lessons are learnt, but expect they will not.
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You are right I think, about UK’s royal family being answerable to their public. Things may have been better managed by the Palace but what concerns me is the level of ‘tall poppy’ scything
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And therein lies the Royal Press Office failure. The insatiable public was always there and public reaction was inevitable. Frankly, I’m with Rhett Butler as far as the minutiae of the Royal Family goes, but the public who pay for them, idolise them and in effect counter republicanism have a right ro be inquisitive or even concerned . The PR bods should have had a strategy. Clearly they didn’t.
If you had an HRT implant you must have had your ovaries removed too.
I had severe endometriosis and I had an oopherectomy after my hysterectomy.
My surgeon saved one third of an ovary so that I didn’t go into a surgical menopause
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Or were they working to orders?
Hmm
A guy in my social circle at Uni had had a colectomy because of ulcerative colitis - that would be a “big” operation, and ulcerative colitis increases the risk of colon cancer - so that might fit with the a priori knowledge that convalescence was going to be prolonged (big surgery, getting used to a colostomy bag etc) and a surprise diagnosis of bowel cancer.
The only problem with that theory being how did Kate manage a pretty full royal diary with a condition like colitis, she doesn’t have a history of last minute no-shows AFAIK. It can also be hereditary - can’t see Charles wanting that risk for his grand kids and the royal line so would have thought it would have been a showstopper for the marriage long before we got to this stage.
Fair point. Same end result though. A PR nightmare.
Future generations will ask incredulously “You still had WHAT at the beginning of the 21st century?”
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I’m certainly not going to comment on another person’s state of health even if they’re a public figure of whom I’d normally disapprove. However I am amused by the tabloids’ confusion and apparent lack of a pre-existing strategy for appropriately dealing with this news.
The Palace PR might have messed things up but that’s not wholly unexpected, whereas the redtops’ floundering highlights their weird relationship with the Royal Family that continually ossicilates between servile respect and prurient curiosity.
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Frank died a few hours ago. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to hang around for long, once he knew the score. He was that sort of person.
Very sorry to hear the news, even when you know its imminent it doesnt take away the shock of it all.
I’m very sorry to hear that. I hope the end came as peacefully as possible for all concerned.
Very sorry. What a shock.
I wish I’d known when I was young, how tough life can be. My sympathies to you and your family.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. The end was peaceful and quick. Here’s a picture of him with his two year old son, Andrew who unfortunately died in 2021.
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So sorry hairbear. These are the toughest of times. That is a lovely photo to remember both of them by.
Sorry for the loss of your brother, but I’m glad to hear the end was peaceful.