LIBBY PURVES: Like Kate, I went through a cancer bombshell and the slog of chemo – this is the tough road she has ahead of her

When life confuses you, you cannot rely on beauty, wealth, fame and titles. You need love and family, self-control and dignity.

In her video statement, the Princess of Wales showed that rare grace: sitting calmly in front of the camera, completely herself. She simply gave the facts and wished us well, ending with a kind hope for others in the same situation.

It felt like an echo of the late queen in the Covid years saying: ‘We will meet again’. Elizabeth II would indeed be proud of her granddaughter, and so should we all.

Meanwhile, the fantasy traders of recent weeks should be cringing at themselves over all the gleeful speculation about everything from abdication to adultery to bulimia to Brazilian butt lifts.

Now we know. It is similar news that reaches millions of people and is always a bombshell. Probably even more so for someone so young, healthy, busy and happy.

That first cancer diagnosis forces reconsiderations, realignments and changed priorities. For a housewife, the first instinct is to minimize the shock to everyone else, because you realize this is happening to them too: children, spouse, parents, siblings.

When I was diagnosed with cancer quite suddenly, I have to admit that my first phone call to my husband started out rather uncharitably: ‘Look, don’t come at me all Yorkshire glum, but…’.

Any philosophical or anxious reflection on your own possible mortality simply has to wait until you have stabilized those close to you, so to speak.

My immediate family consisted of adults, but when children are involved this must be even more important.

For the Welsh, it must have been infuriating for Kate to be discreetly getting chemo, during all that ridiculous photoshop cardigan sleeve nonsense.

So there’s the task of sorting out the family, adjusting the diary of work, friendships and holidays, and then there’s the actual treatment to be had.

I was lucky because I hadn’t really started to feel ill yet: a vigilant GP and a quick biopsy gave an early warning and because it was a blood cancer it meant no surgery. But chemotherapy, as amazing as the progress is in clearing out the little monster cells, is a job in itself.

Prince William will be a rock for his wife to cling to, but the children will be the wild surf of life and joy around them

It must have been infuriating for Kate to have been discreetly getting chemo during all that ridiculous cardigan-sleeves-photoshop nonsense, writes Libby Purves

I did ask, ‘What if I don’t get this chemo?’ To which my cheerful hematologist replied that I might have six or eight months at most. In other words, I was biologically designed to die sometime in 2020. Oh.

I’m a bit of an idiot at such moments and said lightly: ‘Worth a gamble then?’. The fine and tolerant Dr Sadullah put it even more strongly: my particular specimen, like so many these days, can be ‘zapped’.

But it’s weird to get complicated toxins into you. Some people get away with pills, but often the treatment consists of an IV or, in my case, a tube inserted into the chest or arm. I spent a week in the ward, on a 100-hour drip, and then two weeks at home to get rid of the side effects. Then I returned to the department for the second round – and this cycle lasted five months. While of course I take 17 pills a day to counteract them, all with dramatic Game of Thrones character names like Domperidone and Acyclovir.

The good news is that the anti-nausea drugs are brilliant. The bad news is the interludes of ‘neutropenia’ – when you no longer have social contacts. I often snuck into empty movie theaters and hid at the end of a row.

Let’s hope the princess gets away with a minimum of medical problems. But it is tiring, boring and frustrating when your nature is to work hard and play in the full flow of life.

If you’re a woman, you usually have to deal with the bleak issue of hair loss, although young people seem to regain it more convincingly than older heads like mine.

Cheerfulness must be fought for and family jokes cherished.

I discovered that stupid hats helped me make peace with my reflection in the mirror: the Santa hat with the stuffed pheasant model on it still sticks out in my memory.

Libby Purves, pictured, says a housewife’s first instinct is to minimize the shock to everyone else after a cancer diagnosis

The sympathy of outsiders can seem downright creepy at such moments. Never ask a cancer patient, “How are you?” in a soft voice, with a sympathetic tilt of your head, or rush to stop them from doing work they are perfectly capable of doing. (My older brother defiantly painted his boat between treatments.)

So it behooves all of us to offer the Princess of Wales absolutely no unwanted advice or sentimental sympathy in the coming months, just the occasional thumbs up and cheers.

In terms of medical privacy, the couple is in an unusual situation: my own instinct was to immediately post my diagnosis on my theater website, complete with the treatment profile, just to bore people with speculation. It worked.

But worldwide royal fame would make anyone shudder: the King bravely talked about his prostate and the Welsh about ‘abdominal surgery’, and it’s their right to leave it at that while we mind our own business.

The encouraging thing is that the very factor that made their task of revelation so difficult – their three young children – will make them happier in the months ahead.

Children brought up in happy affection are not gloomy or depressed. They like family jokes, parents close at hand and chatting about their own enthusiasm. And even more jokes.

And when you’re down, they have a natural, no-nonsense animal empathy, like a cat that snuggles up to you when you have a fever or a dog that drops its chewed up toy on your feet out of pure companionship.

I’m sure Prince William will be a rock for his wife to cling to, but the children will be the wild surf of life and joy around them.