Last week, the Duchess of Edinburgh was in Tanzania for five days. At the end of her visit, Buckingham Palace finally handed out some photos of her trip, but before then, absolutely no one was covering it. None of the British papers sent a royal correspondent to travel with her, no local media covered her visit, and it was like it barely even happened. It felt like the British embassy in Tanzania was tasked with taking photos and explaining what she was doing and… no one cared.
Well, Sophie has been doing events back in England this week. I’m including photos of her events on Wednesday (a visit to Hale Community and Youth Centre) and Thursday, where she opened the Domaine Evremond Winery in Kent. They gave her wine and she unveiled some kind of sign. Honestly, if I was a royal, I would enjoy those kinds of events, and I always think it’s the height of privilege when William and Kate complain about it. Like, opening a winery and sipping a glass of wine is work for these people and it would be a vacation day for everyone else.
Concurrent with her events this week is a new campaign to convince people that Sophie the Secret Weapon is working very hard while several royals are out of commission. Tatler and the Times of London both had stories about Sophie’s “substantially increased workload” in September. She’s apparently already carried out 37 engagements this month. In September 2023, she only did 18 engagements. I get that she’s doing the “bread-and-butter” royal engagements, but you’d think that the royalist press would hype her events a bit more? Because I have no idea where she was or what she was doing for 36 events in a month. Or do they only care about her in the context of her hatred or love for the Waleses and Sussexes?
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.