Her ‘spontaneous’ visit to women’s centre...
THE Duchess of Sussex emerged from her bolthole for a hastily arranged photograph at a centre for vulnerable women after her personal assistant sent a ‘mysterious’ email asking if she could visit, it emerged yesterday.
A week after she and her husband Harry dropped a bombshell by announcing that they were planning to stand back from full royal duties, Meghan, 38, was pictured smiling with a group of women.
She left baby Archie at the family’s £10.7million retreat on Vancouver Island in Canada and took a 35-minute seaplane trip to Vancouver city for an ‘impromptu’ visit to a rundown area.
She dropped in on the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre on Tuesday for more than an hour. A happy photo of a relaxed-looking Meghan surrounded by volunteers and workers from the centre was then made public, and quickly published on websites around the world.
Meghan’s visit to the centre, founded in 1 78 as a refuge for women and children in one of the most socially disadvantaged parts of Vancouver, appears to have been arranged at the last minute.
Staff were reportedly unaware, but Kate Gibson, the centre’s acting director, said she received a ‘somewhat mysterious’ email from a Hotmail account on Monday asking about security.
It turned out to be from ‘Meghan’s assistant’, and said the duchess was interested in visiting some Vancouver organisations that serve women, Miss Gibson was quoted as saying. As per Meghan and Harry’s new policy of blocking out mainstream media, no newspaper, television or news agency reporter was invited to cover the engagement.
A single photo was chosen, which the centre shared on its Facebook account. ‘Look who we had tea with today!’ the caption read. ‘The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, visited us to discuss issues affecting women in the community.’