EUGENIE SHOWS HER METTLE
It’s not that often that people share X-rays on social media, let alone X-rays of a royal spine. But that’s just what Princess Eugenie has done on Instagram, to help raise $29m for a new wing at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in the UK. She is patron of the appeal.
The shot shows two rods next to her spine, inserted when she was 12 to correct a severe curvature, or scoliosis.
“I can still vividly remember how nervous I felt in the days and weeks before the operation,” she says. “During my operation, which took eight hours, my surgeons inserted eight-inch titanium rods into each side of my spine and one-and-a-half inch screws at the top of my neck. After three days in intensive care, I spent a week on a ward and six days in a wheelchair, but
I was walking again after that.
“Without the care I received at the RNOH, I wouldn’t look the way I do now; my back would be hunched over. I’m living proof of the ways in which the hospital can change people’s lives.”
I don’t quite know how it all works.”
Fergie has described it by saying, “I think our story is one of the great loves – definitely one of the great love stories of the royal family.” She didn’t want to divorce but “had to because of circumstances”.
Most people will think that’s a reference to photographs of the duchess having her toes sucked by her financial advisor John Bryan during a French holiday. In fact, the split was caused by Andrew’s naval career. In the first five years of their marriage, the couple saw each other for less than six weeks a year. Andrew admits he was at least half to blame by neglecting his wife – and he’s been making up for it ever since.
Andrew – and the Queen – also appreciate that despite Fergie’s financial ups and downs, she’s been true to her promise that she would make her own way after the divorce in 1996. It had been expected that she’d ask for a big pay-out.
She told one interviewer, ”When I met Her Majesty about it, she asked, ‘What do you require, Sarah?’ and I said, ‘Your friendship’, which I think amazed her because everyone said I would demand a big settlement.
“But I wanted to be able to say, ‘Her Majesty is my friend’; not fight her nor have lawyers saying, ‘Look, she is greedy.’ I left my marriage knowing I’d have to work. I have.”
Now financially stable, Fergie
still works like a demon. The day after attending Harry and Meghan’s wedding, she flew to Las Vegas to promote her series of children’s books, Little Red, which is about a brave rag doll.
Her earnings will contribute to the cost of Eugenie’s wedding. While the royals will pick up the majority of the expected more than $1.1 million tab and Jack’s family will chip in, the gesture
will not go unnoticed.
“Will they remarry?” says a family friend. “Nobody really knows. I doubt they will while the Duke of Edinburgh is still alive, but we’ll see. If they do, it’ll be very quiet.”
And the most likely venue? St George’s Chapel, where divorcées Charles and Camilla had their wedding blessed.