Royals lead way to honour the fallen
FERGIE says she’s “chosen her tribe” – the Super A Tribe, an elite group of people who are biologically younger than their actual years.
The Duchess of York is 61 and reckons her life is only just beginning.
The fitness regime aims to make exercise an “internalised behavioural expectation”, just like brushing your teeth.
It’s designed by Wayne Lèal and Josh Salzmann, trainers to the stars, and I am sure it’s fabulous.
But still somehow just a bit nauseating... Or perhaps that’s how you lose weight?
THIS REMEMBRANCE Sunday is going to look and feel very different. That said, restricted as it will be to small, sociallydistanced events even at London’s Cenotaph, I hope people will still stop and reflect that we have prevailed over hard times before.
The year of the virus (and please let’s pray that it is only a year) is obviously not comparable to the terrible Great War, for which Remembrance Day was started and the poppy was designed.
Nor the dreadful Second, nor other conflicts in which humans have wilfully destroyed others or been forced to defend their country with deadly force.
However this year we have seen fear and saccrifice in our homes, on our streets, in our old people’s care homes – and we are fighting an invisible foe that even stops us from getting together, calming each other with a hug, a neighbourly cup of tea, or even a smile – the downside of the facemask...
I will miss the parade of veterans, proud widows and sons and daughters, and all the others who march or wheel past the Cenotaph.
But that won’t happen this year though the Royal Family will be working as they have all year.
Last Wednesday I was especially moved to see Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, at the socially-distanced Field Of Remembrance service at Westminster Abbey and touring the memorial plots to some of the men and women who lost their lives in the Armed Forces.
Her presence left me thinking of Harry who was... well... missing.
In recent years, he has traditionally represented the Queen and last year he and Meghan attended together. His absence last week was palpable, and so this year Camilla did the honours alone.
She’s perfectly capable, and qualified – after all, she is Patron of The Poppy Factory and the new Colonelin-chief of The Rifles regiment.
But how many of us still missed Prince Harry and wondered what he was thinking over there in his mansion in California?
In the meantime, and without Harry, the Royal Family have made it clear that, during this lockdown as before, they are going to do their best to carry out public duties.
But it can’t be easy for them to deal with.
They’re expected to turn out for the hugely scaled back Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph, even the Queen who, with Prince Philip, has travelled from Sandringham to base themselves at Windsor for the lockdown period.
That means the couple will be together for their 73rd wedding anniversary on November 20 and the Queen may be forced to spend Christmas at Windsor Castle for the first time in 33 years.
She is rumoured to be furious but she has a loyal and devoted bubble of people looking after her.
Overall though, the way the Royals have performed this year has been magnificent, although questions have been raised over whether or not Prince William should have kept us all in the dark when he got the virus back in April.
But while finding out now might undermine our trust in the Royal word, back in April it would have been rather terrifying, wouldn’t it?