Kate’s heartache for sick children as she opens £10m hospice
THE Duchess of Cambridge has opened a children’s hospice, five years after launching a £10million fundraising appeal to help build it.
Kate, 37, spent yesterday afternoon meeting families who will benefit from The Nook – and told them that she could not imagine going through what they had endured.
The Duchess, who is patron of East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, wore a purple Oscar de la Renta skirt suit to open the charity’s latest facility in Framingham Earl, Norfolk.
She was given a brief tour of The Nook before meeting parents of sick youngsters who will benefit from the hospice, and others whose children have died.
Among them was Leigh Smith, who moved Kate to tears when they first met in 2014 – just months after her three-month-old daughter Beatrice had died from a rare heart condition.
Following their private meeting, Ms Smith said: “She told me, ‘I don’t know how you did that, how you got through it’.
“It was really lovely to see her again and she gave me a big hug. She’s very down-to-earth.”
Kate also met Julie and Kevin Pitcher, whose son Benny, six, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour earlier this year. Mr Pitcher, from East Runton, said: “We told her how our lives had been turned upside down but you battle through.
“She said that as a parent, she could not imagine having to go through that.”
The Duchess also remembered meeting Keira
Leggett in 2015 and laughed when she was shown a picture of them together at the event.
Keira, whose two-year-old sister Ava died in August 2014 – told Kate that she had recently been having a hard time at school.
The Duchess told her: “Be strong. Look after yourself, they don’t know what you have been through.” She added: “I’m so sorry about your sister. I’m in awe of how strong you are.”
Kate has been patron of EACH since 2012, when she opened its first hospice in Ipswich.
The charity cares for children with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.