Prince William made an under-the-radar appearance in London on Thursday while his wife, Princess Catherine, marked Addiction Awareness Week in Essex. According to the Court Circular, the Royal Family's official record of engagements, the Prince of Wales visited the Secret Intelligence Service in London. Later in the day, he met with Matt Brittin, the director-general of the BBC.
Princess Catherine's Essex visit
Meanwhile, the Princess of Wales visited Garon Park in Southend, Essex, where the charity the Forward Trust hosts weekly gardening sessions for recovering addicts it supports. Catherine heard moving stories from people recovering from addiction and showed her green-fingered side as she visited a garden where people in recovery can embrace the outdoors.
The princess was shown around the cricket ground, which has a wellbeing walk and gardening area where people on the Forward Trust's Southend Treatment and Recovery Service (Stars) can go to walk and talk, or try their hand at gardening.
Meeting service users
Kate met service users, including recovering alcoholic Steph Sampson, who told the princess how, in the depths of her addiction, she lied to her children about her alcohol consumption.
The Princess of Wales, who is patron of the Forward Trust and made her visit to mark Addiction Awareness Week, said the outdoors is “so vital for healing”.
“I should have my husband here, he knows a lot (about gardening), he's really passionate,” she told Mr King, before joking about a beehive experience for children being “right up my street”.
Addiction Awareness Week campaign
The princess launched the first Addiction Awareness Week in 2021 on behalf of the trust. For this year's campaign week, which began on Saturday and runs until Friday, the Forward Trust is aiming to start 17,000 conversations about addiction, to mark the number of lives lost to drug or alcohol-related causes in the UK each year.
