NEED TO KNOW
- Kate Middleton summed up how being out and about helps her well-being
- Princess Kate was in Wales on Feb. 3, when she posed for photographs with well-wishers
- The Princess of Wales had spent the day seeing craftspeople and trying her hand at some of the traditional and modern skills on show
Kate Middleton had a sweet response to a well-wisher in Wales.
Princess Kate, who said she was in remission from cancer in Jan. 2025, was greeting members of the public as she wound up a visit to Cardigan on Feb. 3, when a man in the crowd said to her: “I hope you’re getting better really soon after what happened to you.”
The Princess of Wales, 44, replied by saying that being out was “good for my soul.”
“Thank you very much,” she said. “This is good for my soul, meeting wonderful people.”
Since the ending of her chemotherapy treatment, which she announced in Sept. 2024, and her remission, Kate has spent the last year continuing her gentle, gradual recovery and immersion into public life. Throughout, she has spoken of how she uses nature and the beauty of being outdoors to help her heal.
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The meeting with well-wishers took place after her visit to Hiut Denim, a company in Cardigan which makes premium jeans. And Kate also gave a little insight into how the rest of her evening was likely to unfold. (She helicoptered home from Lampeter, where she had a third, unannounced, visit to a museum of quilts.)
When the man asked after her son Prince George, 12, she said, “He’s doing very well, thank you. They are at school today, and I am going to go back and see them this evening.”
As she posed for selfies and spoke to a woman who was holding her granddaughter, one confident schoolboy, Kai Owen, 15, came through the crowd and stood next to Kate. As the princess smiled along, he called out to one of his friends: “Take a picture of me!”
He told PEOPLE, “I thought, ‘I’m never going to get a chance to ask again, so I might as well ask. I waited to see if she would give me a handshake first before I stood there. She was really good, she seems like a really kind woman.”
Maxine Howells Photography/Getty
Earlier in the day, Princess Kate had visited textile manufacturers in West Wales to celebrate heritage, creativity and craftsmanship. And, PEOPLE can reveal, she found some of that beauty in the natural world, as she and her team took in some of the stunning sights of the coastal county as her entourage drove the 25 miles from Melin Tregwynt near Fishguard to Hiut Denim in Cardigan.
Later, the Princess of Wales made an unannounced trip to see a massive array of quilts in Lampeter and popped in to see charity workers at a thrift store next door.
Aaron Chown / POOL / AFP via Getty
Over the last year, the Princess of Wales has visited businesses around the U.K. that are continuing with traditional weaving and clothing manufacture as she highlights the skill-sets that are enduring in the British fashion and homewares industries.
Phoebe Phillips, who has been a trainee at Hiut Denim for two years, told PEOPLE it was “absolutely fantastic” that Kate was highlighting the importance of learning and keeping longstanding skills going.
“British manufacturing should really be celebrated and be a thing. People should know about places like us — we’re the antithesis of fast fashion. It’s really important to keep businesses like these alive.”
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Jen Jones from the Welsh Quilt Centre told PEOPLE of the royal’s mission: “More power to her. She has a tradition in her family of sewing, and she said it started way back with her grandmother.”
“She wants traditional crafts to carry on.”
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