530 cancer ops stopped over winter
NHS hospitals in England were forced to cancel hundreds of cancer operations during the winter, according to a survey.
A poll of 81 acute NHS trusts by the Health Service Journal found 530 ops had not gone ahead.
Macmillan Cancer Support warned delays could affect survival rates.
Fran Woodard, of Macmillan, said: “A delay could mean the cancer not only progresses in that time, but the chances of survival are also affected.”
NHS England said: “NHS hospitals treated 2,615 more cancer patients this January than last January.”
ON paper, a British prince and an American actress might not seem the perfect match. But, as the nation eagerly awaits Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding on May 19, they have already proved doubters wrong. And as our exclusive extracts from new book Harry & Meghan – The Love Story by EMILY HERBERT show, they could have been destined for each other from the very beginning...
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry obviously share many things, but probably one of the most important is they each had to deal with the emotional impact of their parents splitting up.
But, just like her prince, both of Meghan’s parents had an active role in making her the person she would become and, crucially, provided a childhood that enabled her to mix with people from all walks of life. Her mum Doria and dad Thomas split when Meghan was six, although she maintained a good relationship with both. She did her first work as a social campaigner at a young age, too.
“I started working at a soup kitchen in skid row of Los Angeles when I was 13 years old and the first day I felt really scared,” she said in The Game Changers, a book by Samantha Brett and Steph Adams.
“I was young and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed. I remember one of my mentors told me that ‘life is about putting others’ needs above your own fears’. That has always stayed with me.
“Yes, make sure you are safe and never ever put yourself in a compromising situation, but once that is checked off the list, it’s really important for us to remember that someone needs us, and that your act of giving/ helping/doing can truly become an act of grace,” Meghan added.
She continued to live with her mum and in so doing, developed a big sense of adventure, travelling the world from a young age when her mum worked as a travel agent.
“I got the travel bug quite early,” she said. “My earliest memories are of going to Mexico twice a year and Hawaii quite a few times. We never did conventional family trips like Disney World. Hawaii and Mexico were closer for us than going to Florida or the Caribbean. This is all I knew. Just like being an only child was all I knew. I was always aware of how unique and cool it was that my mom got to take me to all these cool places because of her job and connections.
“It was so much fun travelling. My mom never wanted me to just go to a resort and not leave the property, and think that was all there was to visiting a foreign country. We tried to really get an authentic cultural experience.” Her mum was also a yoga aficionado and would practise with her daughter, who would go on to become very interested in the discipline as an adult. Meghan was an only child of her two biological parents, but had two older half-siblings, Thomas and Samantha, and got on very well with at least one of them. Thomas, 14 years her senior, had children of his own by the time Meghan entered her teens: “She used to like to take us to the park,” her nephew Tyler, Thomas’s son recalled. “We would feed the ducks and run to the park when she babysat.” Meghan was very
It’s always been important to be vocal about what’s right MEGAN MARKLE ON HER EARLY CAMPAIGNING
confident as a youngster. Aged only 11, she was offended by an advert by a soap manufacturer that she felt implied women belonged in the kitchen, so she wrote to the then First Lady Hillary Clinton, among other prominent women, to complain.
This early stab at campaigning – she was to do a lot more in later life – worked and the ad was changed.
She was certainly a feisty little girl and her campaigning spirit surfaced early. “I was 11 or 12 years old when I became a member of the National Organisation for Women in the States,” she said. “I’ve always been a young feminist. It’s always been important to me to be vocal about what I feel is right, whether that’s as a woman, or being bi-racial.
“I was an outspoken little one – oh, my goodness, a handful! But I think it’s just who I am.”
Meghan remained close to her dad, who worked on one of the most popular TV shows in the US, a sitcom called Married... with Children, and he proved to be quite as definitive an influence as her mum.
Meghan spent a lot of time with him on set, becoming familiar with the set-up of a TV show from a very young age and getting used to being around actors, directors and the whole crowd involved in the medium. It is hardly surprising she went on to make her career in acting.
Meghan acknowledged as much. “My dad was a lighting director and director of photography,” she said. “Every day after school for 10 years, I was on the set of Married... with Children, which is a really funny and perverse place for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up.” Life on set taught Meghan a lot about her future profession, but there was still the conventional education to undergo. She was determined to succeed at school, to put her head down and get on with it. “Meghan was really charismatic and was a very hard worker and very focused and you could tell she was going to do something special with her life,” said one school friend. She also picked up some talents that would stand her in good stead later when she was breaking into acting but had to support herself with other jobs on the side. Many actresses wait on tables, but Meghan discovered her beautiful handwriting was an even better way to help her earn her daily bread. “It was because I went to an all-girls Catholic school for like six years during the time when kids actually had handwriting class,” she said. “I didn’t wait tables. I did calligraphy for the invitations for, like, Robin Thicke and Paula Patton’s wedding.
“I used to do it for Dolce & Gabbana’s celebrity correspondence over the holidays. I would sit there with a little white tube sock on my hand so no hand oils got on the card, trying to pay my bills while auditioning.”
She was girl scout, too, with her mum being the leader of her troop, and she started taking an interest in acting while still at school – taking part in projects including musical comedy Damn Yankees!.
“Meghan acted in drama and most kids our age wouldn’t have felt as confident in their skills. She was bubbly, optimistic and positive. She was also very focused and had her eye on the prize – she knew where she wanted to go to college and she knew she wanted to do drama. She had the talent and focus to back it up and you could tell she knew the work it would take and she was willing to put in the work,” said a classmate.
It is thought she was homecoming queen, the person nominated to represent the school at homecoming – school reunion – events.
It all turned her into a remarkably self-possessed young woman.
But before she was ready to start her acting career, Meghan was off to university, the first member of her family to do so. Yet more barriers were falling down.
Extracted from Harry & Meghan - The Love Story, by Emily Herbert, published by John Blake, priced £7.99