William was in a state of disbelief

WHILE THE start of the year usually represents a gentle beginning to the calendar, royal 2024 was to change all an William was left in extraordinary position. Suddenly, with three children to care for at home and no live-in staff at their Adelaide Cottage home, and with his wife and father in hospital, his future was looking decidedly different.

- BY RUSSELL MYERS

When the Princess of Wales entered hospital on January 16, and was then ghosted out two weeks later to disappear completely from public view for potentially months on end, it created an incredible vacuum of information.

"When Catherine went in, he was fairly resolute," said a close aide.

"They both very calmly told the children what was going on and how long Catherine would need to be away for, but explained other than that everything would continue as normal and when she came home, she would need to rest up for a bit." Catherine was able to keep in touch with her family through video calls from her bedside, catching up on what George, Charlotte and Louis had been doing at school and asking if "Papa" had been able to cook for them while she had been away.

"At that time it seemed to all be perfectly in hand, they were the calmness in the storm certainly.

But away from the children he was of course incredibly pensive. His father's illness brought into focus just how quickly his life, and that of his family as well as the whole landscape of the institution, could change very quickly." In perhaps the most emblematic moment of the irrationality of the time, in March it emerged that a criminal investigation had been launched at the hospital where Catherine had been treated, over claims that three staff had allegedly tried to access the princess's private medical records.

The security breach, confirmed by the Information Commissioner's Office, which was leading the criminal probe, made headlines around the world for days.

Yet on the day the leak was revealed, the princess was not concerning herself with the probe or the people at the centre of it. She was steadying herself for something much more life-changing.

Two weeks before that moment on a warm spring afternoon in March when she had sat down to pose for a photograph with her family, Catherine had been contacted by her medical team at the London Clinic.