“KIDS bring out caring side of slimline Fergie”, ran the Evening Times headline one day in July 1990, a few hours after the Duchess of York had visited Yorkhill Sick Children’s Hospital in Glasgow.
The duchess was there to officially open a new £400,000 total body scanner unit, which had been been funded by Yorkhill Children’s Trust.
As she was shown round ward 6A she chatted with staff and patients, and for her pains was inundated with flowers as well as drawings done by the youngsters.
She spoke to one four-year-old boy who was visiting his ill, 18-month old sister. He was playing with some plasticine and a toy cooker. Crouching down beside him, the duchess asked:”Are you cooking? That is a nice cooker, with a very good oven. What are you cooking? It looks like pea soup ... mushy pea soup.” She also spoke to another young boy, who was intent on playing with his toy helicopter.
Accompanied by Glasgow’s Lord Provost Susan Baird, the royal visitor unveiled a commemorative plaque, was presented to hospital dignitaries, accepted a rose from a three-year-old boy, and chatted with a three-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with spina bifida. The girl, an in-patient at Yorkhill, had been brought out into the sunshine by her mother.
The duchess then received an official posy of flowers (above) from Lynsey Daniels, the four-year-old daughter of the hospital’s administration manager of the paediatric unit.
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