Good deeds, yes. But who do they help the most?
THIS week a very special duchess was doing what special duchesses do best; she was being sweet to one of life’s unfortunates and lavishing attention on a simple-minded delinquent. But that is enough about F ergie bringing Andrew a cup of tea. Let ’s make haste to the Premier League of duchess -dom and find out what’s been going on with our star strikers.
In Bradford, Kate was in a Zara dress (thrifty gold star) as she visited community projects that promote cohesion.
At the Khidmat Centre she listened to a group singing a song about bananas, which included the lyrics ‘peel bananas, peel-peel bananas’. (For once, even at this perilous stage in royal history, no one was writing u R LUVED BABE on the bananas, which was a relief all round.)
Meanwhile, Meghan was buzzing around north-west Canada in a seaplane, peering out of the fogged window with her do-good binoculars, searching for worthy causes to promote.
Aha! She struck gold in V ancouver, visiting the Justice F or Girls charity , where she discussed a holistic approach to fighting for climate justice for girls — I am guessing it ’s a no to pink plastic umbrellas — and the rights of indigenous peoples.
The duchess of Sussex also popped into the downtown Eastside W omen’s Centre in Vancouver, where she discussed ‘ issues affecting women in the community’.
The biggest women ’s issues in Meghan’s own community are that she is estranged from almost her entire family; that her uncle-in-law has been consorting with a known paedophile and has had to deny charges of sexual misconduct on national television — while her husband is embarking on a quasi-abdication process from his entire family which has grave implica-tions for the British monarchy.
And Meghan knows that for this last instance, many people unfairly blame her. What I hope is that the Eastside women gave her all the support and under - standing she needs and deserves.
However, are you thinking what I am thinking?
Why oh why this sudden rash flurry of good works-based activity from the duchess of Sussex? She has had a long — very long — break from the charity limelight. An understandable one, given her pregnancy, motherhood, Christ - mas, holistic gobbledegook online course and recent six-week holiday to get over it all.
Yet even on her brief recent trip to London, she and the duke of Sussex managed to shoehorn in a ‘secret’ visit to the community kitchen set up in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Good for them — it ’s hard to think of a worthier cause — but isn’t it amazing how photographs of all these clandestine jaunts always find their way into the public sphere jolly quick sticks, via the Sussexes own website or by the grateful charities themselves?
At the moment, the Canadians might be thinking, oh, isn’t it marvellous, having this charismatic couple on our doorstep, hoping to shine a light on the plight of those less fortunate than themselves? Yet one must forgive battle -hardened
Brits for taking a rather more cyni-cal view, or for knowing a damage - limitation and reputation-building exercise when they see one.
After all, not that long ago we all watched the ITV documentary of the Sussexes’ 2019 trip to South Africa, where the duke and duchess bore witness to some of the most unfortunate citizens on the planet, but still managed to make it all about themselves.
Harry talked about never getting over his mother’s death, while Meghan made it clear she was struggling. ‘It’s not enough to just survive something, right?’ she said. ‘You’ve got to thrive, you’ve got to feel happy.’
Only she wasn’t talking about the teenage girls she met, who were taking boxing lessons to fight off the sexual predators who routinely raped them. Or the tiny children in Angola who are still having their limbs blown off by land mines. She was talking about herself.
However, Meghan is no stranger to good works and selfless deeds. The duchess was an activist and a campaigner long before she met Prince Harry. Indeed, their charity profiles and mutual determination to make a difference were charac-teristics that initially and power - fully attracted them to each other. Yet we still find ourselves at an odd juncture.
YOU could argue that there is rank hypocrisy in any duchess sailing forth from her royal palace or luxury waterside mansion to do good works that mostly involve smiling at a camera, especially if she is slumming it in a High Street dress to make herself appear more relatable.
Then just as quickly sailing back again, raising the ramparts of lux - ury behind her.
Yet the problem now is that the duchess of Cambridge does it, as always, because it is part of her royal duty, while the duchess of Sussex now does it at least in part to maintain the kind of lady boun - tiful and altruistic profile which will benefit her commercially.
We just have to hope and pray , along with the Canadians, that Harry and Meghan will not use the tear-sodden backdrop of luckless Canadian misery and misfortune as a prop to make themselves look burnished and even more benevolent, as royal courtiers and lawyers thrash out the monarchy divorce details back home.