Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, turned 60 years old on January 20th. To mark the “big birthday,” Buckingham Palace released some new portraits of Sophie, taken at her estate, Bagshot Park. These were taken by Christina Ebenezer, a Black female photographer, and Sophie noted that she “wanted to support a rising female photographer.” As always, Meghan was the blueprint and they’re going to spend the rest of their lives copying everything Meghan did while simultaneously mocking and denigrating everything she does and is. To mark her birthday, Sophie gave an interview to the Telegraph and allowed the newspaper’s Hannah Furness to accompany her on some charity visits. I’ll admit that while I’m no fan or supporter of Sophie, I was moved by the section where she shows a lot of patience and kindness to several people with learning disabilities. Some highlights:
On her birthday: “I’m 21!” she protests, laughing, before being reminded that it is her 60th. “Ooh that’s so mean, you shouldn’t say things like that! It’s a very large number.” She is joking, mostly, but seems to be telling the truth when she adds: “I don’t know how I got there.”
Almost an empty-nester: As her own children become increasingly independent (“I really miss that little limpet feel,” she tells one young mother cradling her sleeping toddler. “Enjoy it because they get really big!”), she is on the lookout for what else she can do to help.
She’s been doing more work with people with learning disabilities: “It’s been educating for me,” she says of her working life, particularly in the disability sector. “It’s been mostly utterly joyous. I never know what to expect, I never know who I’m going to meet, and I never know what I’m going to learn. And the old adage ‘Every day’s a school day’ is absolutely true.”
At a learning-disability center, she was asked how many castles she has: “I personally don’t have any castles sadly. But there are a few castles. They don’t really belong to the family, they belong to everybody really – they belong to the nation.” Upstairs, she seems delighted when Amy Catton, 33, gently takes her hand to compare rings (Sophie’s diamond is quite a bit bigger), and admires the contents of her sparkly bag: a collection of lipsticks they go through patiently one-by-one.
Why she’s been doing so much in the disability sector: “It goes back to when I first started to get involved with taking on patronages and engagements. I was trying to find, not a unique thing for myself, but a direction of travel I suppose. And, of course, inevitably every time I went down a route, I found a member of the family working very hard doing something and I retreated a bit and thought, ‘No not there, treading on toes.’ And I suddenly thought, ‘What have I been doing up until this point and could shape what potentially could be the next move?’ Because I’d been involved in public relations and communications all of my working life, I thought, ‘Well, so much of that is to do with people.’” The concept of how people interact differently, and the problem of how to raise their profile, drew her to organisations concentrating on disability, she says. “We’re all different, but just because we’re different doesn’t mean that we don’t bring something to the party.”
When all of QEII’s grandchildren stood guard around her coffin: It was, she says, “incredibly moving”, leaving her “just so proud of them” – “all of the cousins” – for the way they listened to instructions. “I suppose there was a part of me initially that thought, ‘Would it be appropriate for James, perhaps, to do it?’ because he was younger than the others, but he was really keen to do it. And I think it was really important for him to do it, and obviously for Louise as well. But they did it so well, each and every one of them. I was slightly holding my breath, wanting them to feel that they’d done it well more than anything else. I wasn’t worried about anything happening; it was more that I wanted them to feel that they’d done their bit for their grandmother. It was incredibly moving, and lovely to see her surrounded by them.”
The part about going through the lipsticks patiently was lovely, as was the part where she was answering whatever questions people had at her event. Maybe she’s a piece of work most of the time, but I’ll give her credit for doing some good work in an often-ignored sector. The Telegraph also lays it on thick about how hard-working she is and how “King William” will be counting on her to pick up even more slack during his reign. Sigh.
Photos courtesy of Christina Ebenezer for Buckingham Palace.
