United show for Royals’ front rank
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge join Charles and Camilla on tour around military rehabilitation centre
THE ROYALS’ front rank was almost complete yesterday as its remaining members fell in at a military rehabilitation centre.
The Queen alone was absent as her family’s most senior representatives turned out for a rare joint engagement.
With the Duke and Duchess of Sussex no longer working Royals, the Duke of Edinburgh retired and the Duke of York taking a back seat, it left just four of them.
Charles and Camilla had joined William and Kate on a tour of a Ministry of Defence establishment for military personnel who have suffered battlefield, neurological or other injuries and illnesses.
No mention was made of the Windsors’ depleted ranks as they met patients and attended a reception.
The Duke of Cambridge tried shooting hoops, with a little help from his father, as their wives watched.
William had been loaned a wheelchair by Major Les Reid, a 49-year-old Liverpudlian who sustained a long-term ankle injury in a climbing accident.
“He wanted to try it and see how difficult it was,” Maj Reid said. “He needed some help from his dad.”
Those around him groaned as the Duke wheeled himself up the mark, then shot and missed three times. Eventually, Charles grasped the back of the wheelchair and moved it a few feet closer to the basket, to the amusement of Kate and Camilla.
As William fluffed his fifth shot, Charles placed his hands around his son’s neck and shook him, before the Duke made it sixth time lucky.
Back in London at around the same time, Kensington Palace dropped a hint as to the increasing reliance being placed on the second in line to the throne and his wife.
The Cambridges, it said, would make their first official visit to Ireland, a three-day tour arranged at the request of the Foreign Office.
No further details were released, but the British Embassy in Dublin said it looked forward to welcoming the couple on March 3.
The visit, so soon after Brexit, is steeped in political significance. It is only nine years since the Queen became the first British monarch in 100 years to travel there, and the first since the nation gained independence from Britain.
No reference was made to the forthcoming trip as the Royals made their way though the rehabilitation centre near Loughborough, Leicestershire, which forms part of a national programme championed by William. He and Kate spoke with patients and staff, and the Duke described it as a place in which those in need of care could be “surrounded by their brothers” in rehabilitation.
Before they left, the Royals met Lt Col Andy Williams, of the RAF Regiment, who is undergoing treatment after a severe head injury sustained in a road accident. His wife, Sharon, told Camilla that her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury 19 months ago when a cement mixer crushed his vehicle.
“Instead of giving up on him, they try here,” Mrs Williams said. “He held a pen and drew a picture, which we never thought we would see him do.”
He wanted to try and see how hard it was. He needed some help.
Major Les Reid, patient at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre.