Pressure on Cambridges to fill ‘Sussex’ gap in Royal duties

From: M.J. Dickinson, Meadow Road, Bradford.

PRINCE Charles and Camilla are in their 70s, Princess Anne, though appearing indestructible, is in her 70th year and all are carrying out Royal duties. Barring an unforeseen event the Duke of York will never do any more, while the York princesses rarely have. The Gloucesters, in their 70s, the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra in their 80s are still Royal patrons and carry out occasional work.

So the exit of the Sussexes to do what suits them has left only the Wessexes and Cambridges under pensionable age to try and take on the work which would have been reasonably expected of the departing Sussexes. The Wessex children are not HRH and so presumably will not take on Royal duties, while it could be 20 years before the Cambridge children are in a position to help should they continue in education or join the Forces etc.

This is not just a slimmed down Royal Family, it is skeletal, leaving most of the pressure on the Cambridges to be seen in public. I hope for the sake of their health they do not try to fill the ‘Sussex’ gap in the rota of patronages and events.

From: Linda Lawson, Garden Mews, Brandesburton.

MEGXIT seems to have split the country as much as Brexit! The Queen of course must be reeling from such a show of disloyalty (moving your dogs to Canada when supposedly on a six-week holiday).

All the public’s sympathy must go to our Monarch surely rather than Harry and Meghan. As for not welcoming Meghan Markle into the Royal Family, I would have thought having a wedding with pomp and ceremony at a reputed cost of over £30m, plus our future King walking her down the aisle, was very welcoming. Even the Prince of Wales had a low-key wedding ceremony as both parties had been previously married.

From: David Hinchliffe, Former Labour MP for Wakefield.

DAVID Behrens was out of order with his suggestion that Prince Harry drawing the teams for next year’s Rugby League World Cup “was hardly an engagement befitting his stature” (The Yorkshire Post, January 18.)

The implication was that his association with the sport was rather beneath him, despite him being its so-called ‘Royal Patron’. Another view might have been that Rugby League on their big day were unfortunate to find themselves a sideshow in the middle of this latest Royal pantomime and that a major sport of its stature deserved a more distinguished presence than him for the occasion.