Her pale face was a study in elegance – and quiet determination. A year ago, the Princess of Wales issued her groundbreaking, and deeply moving, video message to the world revealing that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was now in the early stages of chemotherapy.
Sitting on a bench with a bank of daffodils behind her, she spoke about the ‘huge shock’ of the diagnosis and spoke directly to others with cancer: ‘For everyone facing this disease, in whatever form, please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone.’
What a contrast to the Princess’s recent appearances, when we have seen a glowing – there really is no other word for it – Catherine toasting the Irish Guards on St Patrick’s Day and smiling adoringly at her husband at the Commonwealth Day service and again at the England-Wales rugby international.
It’s clear that after a tumultuous 12 months, William and Catherine are, happily, in a ‘much better place’.
‘It’s actually lovely to see how far they have come,’ says a friend.
Her health remains her priority – a diet packed with healthy antioxidants, trips to the gym and generally being outdoors, particularly with her family, as much as she can.
But while Catherine is understandably focusing on long-term recovery, she was also relaxed enough to enjoy a half pint of Guinness earlier this week when, resplendent in bottle green, accessorised with sprigs of shamrock, she chatted to soldiers after the regiment’s annual parade, which she attended as Colonel of the Irish Guards.
Two days earlier she had beamed amidst the England rugby team as they celebrated victory over Wales in Cardiff. She is a patron of England’s Rugby Football Union, while William is a patron of the Welsh Rugby Union and the couple have always enjoyed some healthy competition with each other.
Perhaps just as telling has been the sight of William cheering on his beloved Aston Villa, or out on manoeuvres with the Mercians in Estonia this week. There’s a sense of normalcy regained.
‘I don’t think many have seen them happier,’ one insider observes.
That’s not to get ahead of ourselves.
At the end of last year I revealed that while Catherine would be taking on a small number of royal engagements throughout the first half of 2025, there was no rush to return to royal duties full time.
‘As cancer survivors will tell you, the recovery is still hard. Her health really took a battering last year. I can’t stress that enough, however well she looks now,’ a source emphasises.
There are no plans yet for any major foreign visit, for example – although aides are keeping an eye on the situation.
‘For the time being it’s steady as she goes. There’s no change of course from what’s previously been suggested, which is a slow and steady return to royal life,’ another insider adds.
But when you consider where she was this time last year, it is a world away.
Looking back, it is almost impossible to articulate the significance of her words in that video message, both in terms of the widespread public shock they caused and also the dignified way in which she chose to impart it, unusually in royal circles, very much on her own terms.
In the normally buzzing newsroom at the Daily Mail you could have heard a pin drop as colleagues gathered around TV screens to watch it at the top of the 6pm news.
I did too, even though I had been quietly sitting on the news for some two hours already, having already been briefed about her diagnosis and watched the video before it went out to the world.
Social media, you will remember, had been in overdrive for weeks with all sorts of outrageous, demeaning and sometimes utterly sordid speculation as to the reasons for Catherine’s disappearance from public life following major abdominal surgery in January.
While Kensington Palace (where only a tiny circle of staff were aware of what was actually happening) had pleaded for people to give the Princess time and space to recover, the prolonged absence of one of the most famous faces in the world with minimal explanation had – inevitably in some ways – given rise to increasingly fevered speculation as to why.
In truth, it was really all that anyone wanted to talk about.
Even my own doctor asked me midway through a medical appointment if I knew what was really happening. Such a lengthy hospital stay (the Princess was a patient at the London Clinic for two weeks) was highly unusual, they said, and had sparked much debate in their own staff room.
In truth, I already had an inkling that it was much, much worse than Kensington Palace had let on.
Indeed, the week before the Princess’s broadcast, this was confirmed to me by a very well-placed source, who stressed how serious they believed her condition had been in the run-up to her surgery.
Another contact also revealed that the increasingly upset and frustrated couple were considering issuing a public statement.
But even I had no idea, when a message suddenly dropped in my inbox at 3.30pm that Friday afternoon, on March 22, inviting me to a confidential media briefing just 30 minutes later, just how grave the situation was.
Afterwards, in the rush of writing thousands of words in readiness for the embargo on the news to lift, I thought nothing particular of the timing.
It’s now been confirmed to me that, like every other aspect of the statement, it was absolutely deliberate.
At 4pm, when our video conference call started, the Wales’s children – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – had left school for the Easter holidays and were en route to Norfolk, where their parents could keep them away from the inevitable hysteria.
However well-meaning the ensuing commentary was to be, it was something that neither William nor Catherine were willing to put ‘the kiddies’ (as she calls them) through.
‘Protecting her children has always been at the heart of every decision she has made this year,’ a source with knowledge of events says.
‘I know it’s a cliche, but cancer is such a leveller and I do think it humanised Catherine more.
‘We saw her not as a princess but as an individual sat there saying, ‘I have got cancer and have spent the last few months getting my children to a point where they could understand that I am not very well.’ I think that stopped a lot of people in their tracks.’
I am told that the Princess wrote every single word of her 371-word statement herself, without any advice from her press office at Kensington Palace.
‘They were absolutely her personal words, it was her story and she wanted to share it,’ a source says.
Another adds: ‘It was powerful and all the more so because it came so personally from her. Only she was in a position to truly get across how she was feeling.
‘The Princess also wanted to make sure whatever she said reflected the experience of the many others around the world who get the same, life-changing diagnosis too. That was something only she was able to share with them.’
The fact that this was followed up with two further personally penned and recorded messages in June and September – plus a message on social media in January revealing that she was happily in remission – only cements how determined she and William are to continue to tell this story in the way they see fit.
On one hand this is down to the couple’s sometimes admittedly overarching determination to ‘control the narrative’.
As public figures, dependent on public finances, only time will tell whether this is truly possible to maintain.
However there is another reason, sources close to the couple have revealed to me.
Both they and their team were genuinely shaken by the discovery that huge swathes of the rumour and conjecture this time last year was down to the manipulation of Russian ‘bots’.
Excellent research last year by the BBC revealed how security investigators believed a Russia-based disinformation group deliberately amplified and added to the frenzy of social media conspiracies about the Princess’s health.
In the weeks leading up to her video message there was a notable surge in online rumours and often wild claims about her health, they said, which added to the already unbearable emotional pressure on the couple.
An analysis of the data showed ‘hallmark signs’ of a co-ordinated campaign (apparently sharing and adding to false claims is easier to do and harder to track than starting misinformation from scratch), presumably with the aim of destabilising the Royal Family, who are seen as a force for unity in the UK.
‘It was already a crazy time but what the couple and their team didn’t realise at first was that the Russians were feeding the algorithm,’ a source tells me.
‘This was deeply worrying and contributed to the thinking that only something from the Princess personally would help to combat the misinformation.’
While her return to ‘normal’ life remains slow and steady, Catherine has indicated that she’s already thinking about spreading her wings.
Although any full-time return to royal duties – including an official foreign trip – looks unlikely to happen in any ‘meaningful’ way until the autumn, during her visit to the Irish Guards earlier this week she said that she would love to travel more with her children when possible.
Recalling her and William’s official tour to Australia and New Zealand in 2014 when George was still a baby, she said: ‘George finds it fascinating that he has been to Australia and New Zealand.
‘I would like to go back there with them [the children] now. It’s finding time to do that. But I love to travel…’
Small talk it might have been, but the comment once again highlights where the Princess’s priorities lie.
‘She’s been deeply touched by the public reaction and is incredibly thankful for their support,’ a source says. ‘More than anything, what she has been through has made her even more grateful for what she has – her husband, her children and her family.’
And clearly made this remarkable woman even more determined to live life on her own terms.
