The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had an emotional reunion with their Grenfell “ladies”, who featured in a community cookbook championed by Meghan. The couple visited Himmah Hub, a Nottingham-based food poverty action group, where they kissed, hugged and held hands with the four women invited to join them.
Emotional reunion with community cooks
The women who cooked for Grenfell families after the fatal tower block fire received regular private visits from the duchess, who later said that catching up with the community cooks was “really, really meaningful”. The Sussexes arrived to cheers from about 50 well-wishers outside a former Methodist church, now home to the charity Himmah Hub.
Harry and Meghan looked relaxed and smiled when greeted by charity executives. The duke later told the BBC: “It’s great to be back, wonderful, and great to be back in Nottingham too.”
Kitchen reunion and cooking session
In the organisation’s basement, the Grenfell chefs were helping to prepare a lunch of chicken tagine and other dishes alongside the charity’s cooks. Staff had set up demonstration cooking areas outside the kitchen, and Meghan told them: “I want to meet all of you, it smells amazing, but I have to go see my ladies first.”
She went into the kitchen and individually hugged Dayo Gilmour, Intlak Alsaiegh, Faiza Hayani Bellili and Leila Hedjem, followed by a large group embrace. As they greeted each other, one woman said “it’s been too long” and Meghan replied “at least five years”. A few minutes later, Harry went into the kitchen and was embraced by the women, as one said “we’ve missed you so much”.
Meghan wrote the foreword to Together, a collection of global dishes by women from the Grenfell community and others, published in 2018, which raised almost £800,000 to expand their culinary work at the Al-Manaar mosque in North Kensington. The idea for the book came from the duchess during the first of a number of private visits to the Hubb Community Kitchen, where, after the devastating blaze, women came to prepare food for friends and families and socialise.
Light-hearted moments and foodbank tour
The event had a light tone, with the duke and duchess washing their hands and putting on aprons to help the cooks with final lunch preparation. Harry joked at one point “I’m supposed to be doing the washing up” as he stood at a workstation. When a chef brought out a tray of meat for the chicken tagine, the duke quipped “this is something I prepared earlier” and the duchess replied “that’s where you were”.
Meghan kept an eagle eye on some west African vegetable fritters browning in a frying pan, and the couple later joined around 50 guests for lunch. The duke and duchess also toured a nearby foodbank and warehouse run by Himmah, which provides up to 1,500 bags of groceries to families in Nottingham every month.
The couple helped volunteers pack carrier bags with tinned vegetables and some sweet treats, but Harry quickly spotted what he claimed was a flaw in their system. He said a packet of biscuits was among the first items collected, followed by a large number of tins, and suggested “you don’t want a bag full of crushed biscuits”, before filling another carrier with the delicate treats on top. Meghan replied “top tip” with a smile.
