Queen Camilla visited Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham, south London, where she met patients, staff and members of the Nature Therapy Bereavement Group, praising the hospice as "such a lovely place". During the visit, she highlighted the power of nature in helping people cope with grief.
Nature Therapy and Bereavement Support
Camilla spoke with members of a bereavement group that meets monthly and uses nature therapy to help deal with loss. She told the group, "you can't beat nature, can you?" The members described an exercise where they went into the garden and filled a jar with items such as flowers and leaves that represented their grief or reminded them of their loved ones.
Being outside and doing this activity helped them express their grief, and being with others who understood their emotions was very bonding at a difficult time. Camilla told them: "It is a lovely idea. It would be a really good idea for hospices to follow suit." She added: "You can think outside and get all your thoughts together."
Garden Volunteers and Their Stories
In the garden, Camilla met several volunteers tending to the grounds, including Philip Hunter of Wandsworth, southwest London, whose wife Hermione died at the hospice in April after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The couple had been married for 44 years, and Hermione spent 44 days at the hospice. Hunter, a freelance biomedical research writer and father of three adult daughters, began volunteering one day a week in the garden four weeks ago to deal with his grief and thank the hospice for the "incredible care" his family received. He said: "I lost my wife in April. It is a good way to deal with the bereavement and to give back."
Camilla also chatted with Paul Oliver, whose wife Loretta, 50, died from late-diagnosed ovarian cancer at the hospice in 2013, when their daughter and son were aged 10 and eight. Oliver has helped raise funds for Royal Trinity, where an inpatient room is named after Loretta, and began volunteering in the garden after retiring in 2020. He told Camilla: "She spent the last six weeks here in May of 2013 and we spent a lot of time in the garden so this is to say thank you and to connect. She had incredible care, my kids were quite young at the time and Trinity was a fabulous support to us at that time." He added: "It's like a family here. I've met a lot of other bereaved people who work in the garden, I've got some fantastic friends."
Young Fundraiser Rohan Arias
Rohan Arias, a nine-year-old who has become a superstar fundraiser for the hospice, handed Camilla a batch of cookies he had baked. A delighted Camilla responded: "Are you a good cook? Do you like baking? We will see you in Bake Off soon. I will probably eat them on the way back - they look good."
Rohan was introduced to the hospice through his school when he was five and began knocking on doors in the neighbourhood to raise funds. In the last three years, he has raised more than £5,000 for Trinity, challenging himself each year to top his previous total. He has hosted picnics, baked cakes and cookies, and cooked two-course family meals to raise awareness and money. Rohan also bakes cakes for nurses and staff at the hospice and for grieving families at Trinity's remembrance evening.
Booker Prize Winner Congratulated
Earlier in the day, Camilla gave "a million congratulations" to M. John Harrison, 81, the oldest winner of the Booker Prize, after he won the leading literary award for his novel The End of Everything. Camilla, 79, met Harrison at Clarence House, where she said: "Many many congratulations. What an achievement after all these years of writing - a long time." Harrison, known as Mike, described the book as a 'Seaside gothic' novel that had taken 15 years to complete.
Harrison told the Queen that the win proved age was not a limitation to success, and Camilla replied: "I couldn't agree more. We are definitely not finished!" Afterwards, Harrison said: "We were talking about how age is automatically considered as a limitation and we were saying the great thing about what has happened to me proves that you can start late and we were laughing about that."
