George’s godmother injured in ski disaster
PRINCE George’s godmother Julia Samuel is used to dealing with the emotional hurt of the rich and famous. But now the distinguished psychotherapist is having to nurse her own physical pain after being injured in a ski accident in the French Alps.
I hear that Julia, 64, who was a close friend of Princess Diana, broke her shoulder in a devastating fall while on holiday with her extended family in Courchevel last week.
‘ The first morning of my holiday, I fell over nothing and busted my shoulder,’ says Julia, a scion of the Guinness banking family. ‘I’ve got ten pins in it and I can’t really move.’
Julia, whose shoulder and arm are encased in a brace, has been a tower of strength to the Royal Family over the years, and Prince William is the royal patron of the charity she founded, Child Bereavement UK.
But stoical Julia, whose son, Ben, was the godchild of Princess Diana, is not going to let her injury get her down.
She has already dealt with the trauma — using a psychological technique. ‘My broken shoulder is called “Trudy”, explains Julia, who’s married to Michael Samuel, of the Hill Samuel banking family. ‘All the family give our injuries alter egos so we can talk about them freely.’
News of a friend’s accident on the slopes will alarm members of the Royal Family, who know all too well how dangerous skiing can be. One of King Charles’s closest friends was killed in an avalanche in the Alps in 1988.
Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth, died aged 34 after being hit by a wall of snow and ice in the Swiss resort Klosters.
Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, another member of the royal ski party, suffered serious leg injuries, but the King and other members of the group were airlifted off the mountain to safety.