Kate’s very personal charity gift: 7 inches of hair to make wigs for cancer children
THE Duchess of Cambridge has found a novel way to support child cancer patients – by donating her hair to a charity that makes wigs for sufferers.
She made the decision after her hairdresser Joey Wheeler cut off seven inches from her usual length four months ago.
It is understood an aide secretly sent her locks under a false name to the charity, thought to be the Little Princess Trust.
The organisation makes wigs from real hair for children who have lost their own through chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
A source said: ‘Four months ago Joey persuaded her it was time to take off some of her hair; he said it was just getting too long. While he was snipping away the idea came to her of doing some good with it rather than throwing it away.
‘She mentioned it to Joey, who thought it was a brilliant idea. It was sent using someone else’s name, so that the trust didn’t know it was from a royal source – they just thought it was from a female donor in the Kensington area.’
The Little Princess Trust was started by the parents of Hannah Tarplee, who died aged five in 2005. Hannah, of Hereford, was diagnosed with a Wilms’ tumour, a type of kidney cancer, in 2004. A sideeffect of treatment was losing her hair.
Each wig requires ten donations’ worth of hair to complete, because a large amount is lost in the specialist knotting process.
Kate is not the first high-profile figure to have donated hair. In 2016, former One Direction star Harry Styles sent his ponytail to the Trust. A picture of it posted on social media attracted more than one million hits.
The source told the Sunday Express: ‘It’s lovely to think somewhere a little girl is happily wearing a wig made from a real princess’s hair.
‘It’s a very heart-warming thing for Kate to have done, and very thoughtful to use hair that would have otherwise just been thrown away.’
A spokesman for the Little
‘Heart-warming thing to do’
Princess charity said: ‘We are not aware of having any donation made by the Duchess of Cambridge, but if she had sent us some hair, she may have decided to make it anonymously, understandably after the attention given to the donation made by Harry Styles.’
To date, the charity has given away more than 5,000 wigs. It also researches less toxic alternatives to chemotherapy. Manager Monica Glass said: ‘We are so very grateful to every single person who kindly supports the charity in this way. As the Duchess of Cambridge is so much in the public eye, we hope the message that the charity can help children and young people with hair loss will reach everyone who might need our assistance...
‘We hope that this donation will encourage others to consider supporting the charity in the same way.’