The Princess of Wales shared a deeply emotional moment with a mum whose teenage daughter took her own life - where she made her a touching promise.
Kate visited Maidenhead Rugby Club today where she extended her campaign to highlight the crucial importance of the early years of a child’s life by focusing on the role of fathers.
While visiting the club, she was introduced to Maidenhead under 14s coach Sarah Renton, whose talented sportswoman daughter, Issy, tragically took her own life at the age of 17.
On meeting the princess, mum-of-three Sarah gave her a pair of star-shaped earrings that had been made by her cousin in Issy’s memory.
Emotional Kate turned and hugged Mrs Renton fiercely and promised to wear them.
Mrs Renton explained afterwards: "The proceeds from the earrings are going to a charity called Brave Minds, a mental health charity that supports children using the platforms of rugby clubs. Mental health is such an important issue.
"She was wonderful, Issy, a real breath of fresh air. She had wonderful, wonderful friends, surrounded herself with the best people.
"She was owning life, doing so well in her A levels, she was going to do an elite rugby programme, she played touch rugby for England and got a gold medal in the summer.
"But she was also struggling with depression. Everything was harder than it was supposed to be.
"We thought she was obviously doing better than she was. But I think one of the things we are looking at is GPs, medication and lack of support.
"She got herself in a bit of a vacuum. It’s affected a lot of the parents and children here at the club but we are getting through it together.
"The princess said she would wear the earrings. She is very passionate about what she does. It was so great that she came down here today."
Kate - dressed for action in a rugby top, tracksuit bottoms and trainers - was greeted at the club by chief executive of the RFU, Nigel Gillingham, and Maidenhead’s chairman, Steven Bough.
She was also joined by former player Ugo Monye, who is now a champion for her ‘Shaping Us’ campaign, to highlight the importance of childhood experiences for under 5s.
On the pitch, athletic Kate had to be reminded that it was "walking only" rugby as she got stuck into a drill. ‘Sorry, sorry!’ she said.
It was harder than it looked, forcing herself not to run, she later said. But she was still able to leap athletically and even twirl as she caught the ball and threw it to her teammate Courtney Lawes, who later declared her a "very good" player.
There was slight confusion afterwards as to whose team won: the yellows declared it their victory but Kate's blues also claimed the honours.
Inside the club, Kate sat down with a group of players, including Lawes and Danny Care, to speak about their experiences as fathers along with Si Trower, the founder of mental health charity Brave Mind, and other club players.
"Do you feel, particularly as a first-time dad, there was information out there to help guide you?" asked the princess.
"Not at the time," Mr Trower replied. "But neither did I go out looking for it. It’s a big life change and could be really hard at the time."
Lawes said to laughter from Kate and the other players: "As a dad for the first six to nine months my misuses was breastfeeding and you feel a bit of a spare part a lot of the time.
"If you knew the first five years of their life was such an important period you would be more likely to dive right into it. Instead of thinking, well they’ll get to six or seven and start playing football and then we’ll be sweet!"
Kate said: "What started my journey looking into the first five years was going into schools, talking to them about mental health. The staff were telling me that so much more needs to be done before they even step past their door."
She continued: "So many of those years are non-verbal. Teenagers can articulate how they feel.
"With mental health, so many more people are talking about it, which is great. But we have to be careful not to over-medicalise it.
"That’s why we wanted to focus predominantly on the social and emotional development of young children particularly in this critical period because it’s the foundations of their healthy minds and healthy relationships later down the line."
She then turned to the players and asked: "Do you feel as parents…because it didn’t come across my radar as a first-time parent…the things we can do support our children’s social and emotional development?
"There's a lot around breastfeeding, weaning, sleep time, baby’s weight…but I was less aware around the things we could all be doing. It's harder to access that information as a first-time parent." All the men agreed.
The princess added: "There are parents up and down the country who haven’t had positive childhoods of their own and who are struggling with their own kids. As well as highlighting the importance of the issue, making sure that families have as much support as possible to do the best possible job they want to do is important.
"Every parent wants to do the best job they possibly can. But they don't have the lifelines of their own family or community places such as this."
Before she left the princess posed for photographs with the professionals and club players and was jokingly invited to kick a ball over the head of the photographers and journalists.
Kate took up the challenge - sending the ball soaring to cheers.
Her visit comes as new research from the Princess’ Centre for Early Childhood today reveals that whilst 24 per cent of women identify pregnancy to five years old as the most important period - up four per cent from last year - only 14 per cent of men did so.
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