Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Kate picks her corona jewels
Duchess’ lockdown photo project
THE Duchess of Cambridge wore her heart on her red sleeve with warm words for the finalists of her photo project capturing life during lockdown.
Kate, 38, told hospital workers snapped writing their names, smiley faces and hearts on PPE aprons it was “so important” to understand what they had been through during the crisis.
Alongside husband William, the Duchess sat with oncology pharmacist Joyce Duah, 33, who captured pharmacy technicians Amelia Chowdhury, 34, and Dipal Samuel, 38, at St Bart’s Hospital in London.
Dressed in an Alexander Mcqueen coat, Kate thanked them for the image, titled All In This Together, saying: “It had such an impact, it captured the moment, it was a look behind the scenes.”
Sitting in the hospital grounds, the three colleagues told the royal couple how strongly they felt about the project. Dipal said: “When children are doing history or biology, they can have these photographs of Mum doing this. There were times when goggles were in short supply. One day I had swimming goggles. There was sweat filling up my swimming goggles.”
William, 38, replied: “I love the ingenuity. Your eyeballs were literally swimming in swimming goggles.”
During a tour of billboards of portraits at Waterloo Station, they met Sami Ayad, a volunteer at a food hub in Hackney, who was pictured by Grey Hutton.
Revealing Kate called to congratulate him on being a finalist, he said: “She was so passionate about showing what everyone experienced.”
As the Cambridges left the exhibition, William stopped outside the station’s KFC restaurant to wave to diners.
The final 100 images selected by Kate and a panel of judges from more than 31,000 entries for the Hold Still exhibition, launched with the National Portrait Gallery in May, can be seen at 112 sites across the country.