What would Meghan say? Prince Harry given sloppy kiss at Heads Together event
PRINCE Harry got a big sloppy kiss from an old friend today at a St James’s Palace reception for supporters of the royals’ Heads Together mental health campaign.
Cooper, a two-year-old assistance dog, climbed up on the Prince’s chest and gave him a friendly lick on the face after renewing their acquaintance.
The labrador-retriever cross has met Harry several times with his owner, Phillip Eaglesham, a former corporal in the Royal Marines who uses a wheelchair after contracting Q Fever, a debilitating disease caused by bacteria, in Sangin, Afghanistan in 2010.
Mr Eaglesham said: “Cooper was really excited when he saw him. Obviously, he’s a dog person and he sees dogs all the time and the difference they make to people. Cooper’s tail was going into a helicopter.
“He gave him a kiss at Buckingham Palace at the Not Forgotten garden party last summer.”
Mr Eaglesham, 35, from Taunton, Somerset, said Cooper helped him break the ice meeting people in addition to his other duties, which include loading washing in a machine, opening doors, and paying cash over the counter for his owner.
Harry, 33, and his brother the Duke of Cambridge invited 100 key supporters of their Heads Together campaign to the reception inside the throne room at St James’s Palace to mark World Mental Health Day.
Among them were broadcasters Kate Silverton, Victoria Derbyshire, and Mark Austin as well as Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who has written extensively about his battles with depression.
In a speech, William, 35, said: “Today, we are here to say thank you. Thank you to everybody.
“When Catherine, Harry and I launched Heads Together, it is fair to say that we were ambitious about what it could achieve.
“It was Catherine who first realised that all three of us were working on mental health in our individual areas of focus.
“She had seen that at the core of adult issues like addiction and family breakdown, unresolved childhood mental health issues were often part of the problem.
“Harry had seen that it wasn’t enough to help veterans recover from their physical injuries without acknowledging the emotional and mental support they required.
“And after years of working with the homeless, and having been called out to multiple scenes of suicide as a Search and Rescue and then HEMS pilot, I understood the damage poor mental health was causing to our communities and for our families.”
The second in line to the throne told guests: “We decided to assemble a coalition of charities – comprised of people who had spent decades working to bring mental health out of the shadows – to campaign together to change the national conversation on mental health.
“And in the weeks leading up to this year’s Virgin Money London Marathon, this country had a conversation on mental health that for the first time was positive and truly national.
Source: EXPRESS CO UK
Tags: Prince William, Catherine Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, kate and William
