Kate's innocent and authentic video lifts the dark veil over the royal family

The professional video – a new approach for the royals – shows that the Princess of Wales has completed her chemotherapy and will return to public appearances.

September 9, 2024, 19:08

Let's keep our fingers crossed that a dark veil over the royal family will be lifted.

Almost exactly two years after the death of Elizabeth II, the King and Princess of Wales are making good progress in their hoped-for recovery from cancer. Neither is out of the woods, but treatment is proceeding as planned. The King has returned to his public duties in between his medical treatments.

And in an extraordinarily intimate video – a new royal approach – the Princess of Wales has reported that she has completed her chemotherapy treatment and is returning to public appearances, although, as she said, “my road to healing and full recovery is a long one.”

The video was professionally made – how long ago was it since it was revealed in March that the poor princess had crudely Photoshopped a family photo. But that was before the shocking revelation of her cancer, which put everything into perspective.

Featuring soft, golden lighting, soothing, tinkling music and slow motion shots, the video has a distinctly retro feel, with images cut into vertical strips like old camera film.

The Waleses looked like they came straight out of the Famous Five – they scampered over dunes, into the waves and through wheat fields fringed with wildflowers – and wore tasteful summer dresses and pale blue shirts. There are no cell phones, video games or family squabbles here – the conversation is distinctly analogue to the 1950s, revolving around card games with the princess' parents, punctuated by loving hugs.

It would be easy to make fun of all this innocence – so artfully captured on camera – if it weren't so tangibly real.

Perhaps this whole dark episode of royal illness – and, God willing, royal recovery – will also reshuffle the royal family. Perhaps Prince Andrew will increasingly be relegated to a distasteful sideshow while we focus on the king and his immediate successors – and their health.

Here we see, in the form of the Wales, a young family facing the most terrible thing of all – and dealing with it honestly and directly, without hysteria, but also without the censorship that has prevailed with previous royal illnesses.

One of the reasons why George VI's death in 1952 came as such a shock – quite apart from his age (he was only 56) – was that his fatal illness had been so concealed.

This openness about the king and princess' cancer is unprecedented. Understandably, they do not want to reveal every detail of their illnesses. But their openness about their condition is nevertheless admirable.

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This ended the uncomfortable speculation about the princess' absence from her public duties. And it also increased public health awareness. After the royal revealed that he had undergone treatment for an enlarged prostate (but not prostate cancer), internet searches for prostate disease skyrocketed – which is particularly useful since men, more than women, are reluctant to get checked out for supposedly embarrassing conditions.

Anyone, regardless of gender, who has had cancer themselves or knows someone close to them who has cancer will empathise with the Princess's words: “The journey to cancer is complex, frightening and unpredictable for everyone.”

Her statement was written in good, simple prose. It didn't contain any earth-shattering phrases, but when it comes to life and death, the obvious, oft-stated things are often true. As the princess said, we take for granted the most important thing: “just love and be loved.”

There was nothing sentimental about the statement. The only times it was meant to be poetic – rather than poignantly factual – it was effective: “Out of darkness can come light, so let that light shine brightly.”

It is to be hoped that a similarly good news story about the King's cancer treatment will be published soon.

The last few years have been pretty bleak around the world: from Ukraine to Gaza. Front pages don't always have to be outlined in black.

Harry Mount is the author of How England created the English (Penguin)