LITTLE GIRL’S GIFT CROWNS A DAY TRIP TO NORWICH
Five months on from his coronation, the King was presented with a new crown – made out of paper by a fouryear-old girl.
Arielle Bayliss gave His Majesty the headpiece, placed on a folded blanket, during his visit to a Norwich hospice.
“Is that for me?” the monarch asked. “Thank you very much. Did you put that together?”
Arielle then made the room laugh as she took back the blanket and gave it to her mother, Rebecca Turner.
His Majesty was officially opening the new Priscilla Bacon Lodge, where Rebecca is being supported through stage 3 melanoma. He heard how patients take part in craft activities with volunteers – and are offered a tipple from a drinks trolley during the morning.
Rebecca, 31, who was joined by her partner Jonathan Bayliss and mother Nicki Turner, told the King: “I’ve been on a rollercoaster of up and down but I’m very happy here.
“And the staff – I feel like I’m a princess. We have Baileys [Irish cream liqueur] at 11 o’clock.”
“I know – I saw it on the trolley!” replied the King, who had earlier met volunteer Ernie Pinch, who was serving up drinks. “And Stone’s Ginger Wine or something.”
FAMILY HELP
His Majesty also chatted to Barry Prior, 78, a terminal cancer patient who was with his wife Ann.
“I have to give her time off because she gets fed up with me, as you can imagine,” he told the royal guest, who smiled and laughed as Barry added: “She very rarely lets me go anywhere on my own. She never has done, actually. When I had a head of hair, all the women used to be after me.”
Located near to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the new hospice provides a modern palliative care unit, inpatient beds, a day unit and a wellbeing centre, as well as a therapy dog called Agnes.
