It’s tiaras for two ... and tea for three!
Kate and Wills crown cancer girl’s day with playtime cuppa
‘Father calls her a princess’
THE Duchess of Cambridge donned a toy tiara to enjoy a tea party with a sick girl on her hospital bed yesterday.
Proudly wearing the bejewelled plastic headgear, Kate was poured a pretend cuppa by Wafia Rehmani, who is suffering kidney cancer.
The seven-year- old girl was thrilled when the Duke and Duchess stopped at her bedside on a visit to Lahore’s Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre.
The stop-off follows in the footsteps of the Princess of Wales, who twice visited in the 1990s when the hospital was being set up by former cricketer Imran Khan, who is now Pakistan’s Prime Minister.
Yesterday Wafia, who is on her second round of chemotherapy, carefully poured from her plastic tea set as she smiled shyly at her royal visitors. Excited at the prospect of VIPs on the ward, the youngster had arranged her teapot, cups and saucers and brought two plastic toy tiaras in advance of the visit.
Her brother, Hedyatullah Rehmani, said as they waited for the royal couple to arrive: ‘Father calls her princess and she likes to wear a crown. Now she is looking forward to meeting a real princess.’
When William and Kate sat down beside her bed, Wafia offered the tiara and the duchess accepted.
The couple were told that the little girl, the youngest of nine children from Parwan Province near Kabul, Afghanistan, wants to be a doctor. She also proudly showed the Cambridges her toy medical set laid out on her bed, and William tried out her stethoscope.
Despite her illness reappearing following her first course of chemotherapy, doctors say they are optimistic about her recovery.
The Cambridges also played with five-year-old Muhammed Sameer, who was being treated at the hospital for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. When they arrived at his bedside they were told that the boy wants to join the army.
William, who spent time as an Army officer and a helicopter pilot, picked up Muhammed’s toy planes and a tank. ‘Do you want to be a soldier?’ he asked.
The charity hospital was set up by Mr Khan after his mother, Shaukat Khanum, died from cancer in 1985. Her illness highlighted the lack of cancer care in the country and the need for specialised treatment, he said. The hospital opened its doors at the end of 1994. Mr Khan encouraged his friends to help with the fundraising and Diana made two private visits to help in 1996 and 1997.
Dr Aasim Yusuf, the hospital’s chief medical officer, guided Diana on her two visits, and yesterday showed her son around.
Recalling the Princess of Wales’s visits, he said: ‘We were all struck by how friendly she was. How she was able to put everyone at ease. The minute she came into the room, she lit up the room obviously and also she was just so friendly and down to earth. You could tell that she was genuinely interested in the people she was meeting.’
Kate and William earlier visited SOS Children’s Village, a community for orphaned children. The duchess gave her first speech of the tour and even tried her hand at a little Urdu as she celebrated the birthdays of three young children.
She said: ‘We have been really moved and touched by what we have seen, and by the happy home you have made.’
The royal couple began by sitting in on a musical storytelling session and were given brightlycoloured finger puppets to play along with. After asking each of the children’s ages, William asked one little boy: ‘How old do you think I am?’ The child replied: ‘Twenty-one?’
The prince laughed: ‘I’ll take 21, that’s good!’