DUKE OF HAZARD...PRINCE JOKES DURING MID-AIR JET DRAMA
she is looking forward to meeting a real princess,” her brother, Hedyatullah Rehmani, said as they waited for the couple to arrive at the chemotherapy ward.
The couple were told that Wafia, the youngest of nine children with four older brothers and four older sisters, wants to be a doctor.
She also showed them her toy medical set laid out on her bed.
The couple also played with fiveyear-old Muhammed Sameer, who was being treated at the hospital for Hodgkins Lymphoma.
The couple were told the boy, from Attock district in Pakistan, wants to join the army. The Duke picked up Muhammed’s toy planes and a toy tank.“Do you want to be a soldier?” the Duke asked.
He and Muhammed then played the boy’s fishing game, competing to hook plastic fish from a revolving turntable. Muhammed easily beat the Duke.
Imran Khan, now Pakistan’s prime minister, founded the charity hospital after his mother, Shaukat Khanum, died from cancer in 1985.
He encouraged his friends to help with fundraising and Princess Diana made two visits to the hospital, in 1996 and 1997. The 195-bed hospital still relies on donations.
Recalling Diana’s visits, chief medical officer Dr Aasim Yusuf said: “We were all struck by how friendly she was, how she was able to put everyone at ease.We were all very nervous about what we should say, what she would ask and how we should address her.
“But the minute she came in she lit up the room.Also she was just so friendly and down to earth.”
Her elder son and his wife also appeared to have captured the hearts of the people yesterday.
The glamorous Duchess started the day in a white shalwar kameez by Gul Ahmed and shawl by THE Duke of Cambridge still managed a joke as the royal couple were caught in a mid-air drama yesterday, when their plane had to abandon plans to land at two airports because of hazardous thunderstorms.
The RAF Voyager aircraft Maheen Khan. Over lunch she changed into a green outfit by Khan for a tour of one of the city’s most famous landmarks.
She donned a headscarf when the couple went to the breathtaking Badshahi Mosque, which can accommodate 56,000 worshippers, in the heart of the oldWalled City.
Inside the mosque, the most iconic place of worship in the bustling Punjabi city, they were given a carrying the couple, their entourage and British media had to circle Islamabad for an hour.
Eventually they were forced to turn back and return to Lahore as violent storms made the approach too dangerous. One RAF crew member was sick at history of the building before being invited to sit cross-legged with a group of religious leaders for a discussion about interfaith tolerance.
As they sat down they listened to a prayer from the Holy Quran, before discussing ways of encouraging religious tolerance.
When they left they were told by Britain’s honorary consul Fakir Aijaz Uddin: “If there’s one word to describe your visit it is ‘joy’. You the back of the plane and others in the entourage panicked.
However, Prince William came to the back of the plane to check that everyone was OK and, with a big smile on his face, joked: “I was flying,” while gesturing erratic steering movements. Tea and tiaras... William and Kate visited the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital. The Duchess wore a tiara with young patient Wafia, top. The visit echoed Diana’s trips there in the 1990s, left
have radiated joy wherever you have been.” William replied: “We are very happy people.”
It seems not everybody has been ecstatic though. The BBC Urdu service reported yesterday that six Pakistani government ministers had walked out of a British High Commission reception for the couple on Tuesday in protest at their low standing in the protocol.
Earlier yesterday, Kate, 37, gave her first speech of the tour and threw in a few words of Urdu when the couple visited SOS Children’s Village, a charity in the heart of the city that provides a home and family structure for 150 orphans.
“Earlier this year I talked about the fact that it takes a village to raise a child. The village we have seen here today is the best representation of that ideal that I could have possibly imagined,” she said.
‘One word to describe your visit is joy... you have radiated joy wherever you have been’