At Sandringham on Christmas Day as the Duke of York was captured on video asking the crowd why they all had their phones out to record the royal family, it quickly became clear who the fans were really interested in.
“Sarah, Sarah!” came the calls from well-wishers, drowning out Prince Andrew as he attempted to explain what it was like being confronted by a wall of phones.
No one cared. The person they really wanted to chat to, the person they most admired in this weirdly uncoupled couple, was the Duchess of York, the woman who hadn’t walked alongside the royals to a Christmas Day church service for more than 30 years.
It’s been a long time coming but Fergie, the larger-than-life, chaotic but eternally optimistic and well-meaning duchess, has come in from the cold yet in the cruellest turn of events her newfound happiness and calm has been upended by not one, but two cancer diagnoses.
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York attends the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church for the first time in 32 years
Sarah stayed at the Mayrlife Clinic in Austria where she rested and recuperated
Sarah proved very popular on ‘Good Morning Britain in December 2023
We used to say “poor Fergie” with ridicule and more than a little disdain. Now we say it with genuine affection and concern because the 64-year-old grandmother of three has suffered breathtaking bad luck. Last year she revealed she was being treated for breast cancer, a process which involved a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, and now she has discovered she has skin cancer of the worst kind – a malignant melanoma. Tests are ongoing to determine whether the cancer has spread.
It’s all the more distressing because the royal once so maligned for her poor decisions, grasping behaviour and downright stupidity, has recently undergone a midlife reawakening. She’s now a hard-working career woman, a charity dynamo, a devoted mother, loyal ex-wife and a careful and enthusiastic cheerleader for the new-look royal family. If a measure of maturity is finally learning to think less about yourself and more about others, and to be guided by kindness above all else, then Sarah Ferguson has finally grown up.
Poor Fergie. To have finally got her life together after decades of shame and scorn and then to find herself contemplating not seeing her grandchildren grow up, as she admitted on her podcast, is desperately sad.
We all remember the toe-sucking, the attempts to sell access to Prince Andrew and the bad financial decisions, but underneath it all was probably just a girl with abandonment issues. Remember, Sarah was just 14 when her mother Susan Barrantes left home to live in Argentina with a polo player.
Yet in modern therapy speak, Fergie has done the work. Those who know her say she is still fun-loving and demonstrative but there’s a newfound restraint.
Sarah seen with the late Queen’s dog, and revealed that they had both been grieving too
Sarah Ferguson launched a podcast with her friend Sarah Thompson in 2023
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson together at Ascot in 2019
Like Camilla, like Kate, like Zara Tindall, she occupies that unique position of having one foot within the royal family and the experience of having the other outside of it. It’s why she was so honest about her breast cancer – urging others to check their breasts – and why, now, she is sharing intimate details of her latest diagnosis.
She has been brave and generous in discussing her health challenges but with her father being diagnosed with skin cancer three months before his death from a heart attack in 2003, Sarah must be deeply worried about where this will lead.
Here in , where two in three people will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime, we are applauding the extraordinary transparency by the royal family in discussing their health issues. We don’t see these challenges as weakness but as the reality of being human. To share your private medical setbacks – knowing there will be heightened speculation just as you’re trying to manage your own personal fears – goes beyond the expected duty and service. It’s an act of grace.