A GUST of wind blows through the trees surrounding the Maggie's Centre and garden in Dundee, lifting the collars and twitching the skirts of the assembled dignitaries nervously awaiting their royal visitor.
Faces line the windows of the Ninewells hospital wards that overlook the far side of the garden where, in all the excitement, one of the patients has forgotten to put his pyjama top on. He stands up against the glass, bare-chested and expectant, awai
ting his first glimpse of the woman who is usually referred to in Scotland as the Duchess of Rothesay, but is better known to everyone who's ever picked up a newspaper as Camilla.
There's a laidback atmosphere here today. Maggie's, the cancer charity founded in 1995 by the late Maggie Keswick Jencks and her husband Charles, which provides drop-in care for cancer sufferers and their families in buildings designed by world-class architects, is opening its first garden. Designed by the landscape artist Arabella Lennox-Boyd, it sits in the grounds of Maggie's Dundee, which was itself designed by the legendary Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry. The Duchess, on only her third official visit to a Maggie's Centre since becoming the charity's first president last October, is here to unveil the plaque.
On arrival, as she chats to the welcoming committee lined up to meet her, she finds her wispy, blue-and-white spotted chiffon skirt attacked by that pesky Dundee breeze. Her face crinkles into a smile as she remarks, with a booming laugh loud enough to be heard by the entire press pack, "I'm holding on to my skirt!"
Jencks, a landscape architect whose enthusiasm for Maggie's following the death of his wife, a writer, in 1995 has been the driving force behind the charity's success, is unmissable in his purple suit and clearly exuberant about the Duchess's appointment as president.
"I didn't realise," he tells me in a conspiratorial voice, "but the Duchess actually knew Maggie and me a long time ago. She had to remind me of that. It's wonderful to have her on board. She's brought a lot of deep feeling and sensitivity to Maggie's."
The Duchess's latest position may turn out to be her most public – perhaps even her most influential – role to date. Until now, her most visible charity work has been done through the National Osteoporosis Society, of which she is also president. But Maggie's is a different ball game. A highly visible, unique charity with roots in Scotland, which attracts globally renowned names – and the media interest that goes with them. It is also an incredibly media-friendly organisation, with a slick operations team which understands the complexities of keeping its cancer charity (in a world overflowing with them) in the headlines. The Duchess may now have a long list of charities to which she lends patronage, but the Moorland Mousie Trust or The Fan Museum this ain't.
The Duchess's advisors must know this. That they have nonetheless approved the position suggests they consider her ready for a role that will push her further into the media spotlight than she has ever willingly been before.
Once inside the centre, the Duchess gets down to business, chatting with a group of patients and families, including Roddy Davidson, 39, who lost his wife Elaine to cancer just 18 months ago. The couple regularly came here together, first when Elaine was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, at the age of 37, and later when a fatal brain tumour was discovered. "Maggie's was a really important part of both of our lives," he says. "The support we got here, the people we met, allowed us to make the most of our precious time together. Every morning I get up and want to help Maggie's in any way I can."
The patients seem relaxed, perfectly at ease chatting to the Duchess. She is neither starry nor remote – perhaps because she lived as a 'commoner' before marrying Prince Charles – and at one point gets down on her knees to say hello to Ava, a nine-month-old baby who is here with her father, Gordon Kirk, 39, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer just six weeks after she was born. "My diagnosis and treatment have made me reassess life and Maggie's has helped the family through that change," he says. The Duchess, he adds, seemed "very down to earth".
"It's a real honour to have her as president," says Laura Lees, chief executive of Maggie's Centres and the woman who, as Maggie Jencks's cancer nurse, cared for her during her final days. "(The Duchess] really understands the impact cancer can have on your life. She's not just a figurehead. She's a real ambassador for our cares and objectives, because she understands and shares them."
Back in the garden, the Duchess is introduced to gardening workers who have helped sculpt its extraordinary rectangular shapes, as well as lay down the pebbles for the labyrinth maze that forms its centrepiece.
It's based on a design inside Chartres Cathedral," explains Jencks. "Maggie and I went there together and walked along the maze on the floor inside. If you do it slowly it takes about 35 minutes. Imagine, (if] you'd just had chemotherapy and you could be somewhere peaceful like this..."
Jencks hopes to see gardens in every Maggie's centre eventually. Meanwhile, there's Maggie's Cotswolds, at Cheltenham hospital – the charity's second centre in England and what might be called the Duchess's 'local', owing to its proximity to Highgrove (and one of the reasons, according to Lee, why she became involved with Maggie's), due to open later this year. Planning permission has recently been submitted, too, for a Maggie's at the newly located Beatson Institute for Cancer Research at Glasgow's Gartnavel hospital.
Back in the garden there's a small unveiling ceremony and the Duchess walks out to the circle at the middle of the labyrinth. By now, a crowd has gathered on the opposite side of the garden to watch while, at the window, the bare-chested man has been joined by a second, similarly topless companion. I'm not sure whether the Duchess noticed or not, but either way, I get the feeling she probably wouldn't have minded.
