In a small, sparse room at the back of a bakery on the urban streets of Camden, north London, the Duchess of Sussex is comforting a crying woman. Tanya's tears fall over the scars that are stark reminders of the violent ex-partner who is now serving a lengthy prison sentence after he stabbed her repeatedly.
"Society judges women for staying in abusive relationships," she says to me and the Duchess. "But I don't ever feel judged here. I feel I can be free. I feel I can be myself."
For the Duchess, showing vulnerability is not a weakness.Credit:Getty
The Duchess has been a supporter of the enterprise that helps to empower disadvantaged women through training and employment opportunities for some time; featuring them in the issue of Vogue that she guest-edited, and today she has invited me to join her on a private visit to the bakery's newly opened second branch.
I watch as the Duchess puts Tanya and her friend Giselle at ease. "One of the things I have realised since being here [in the UK]," begins Meghan, "is that people have an expectation when I'm coming somewhere, so I'm like, let's just be really relaxed, keep everyone nice and chilled, because at the end of the day, we're all just women. We all have a story to tell, and I feel honoured that I am getting to hear yours."
The effect on Giselle and Tania is immediate. Giselle tells us about her history of drug abuse and homelessness, about ending up in prison, and about how coming here to train gave her a much-needed opportunity to turn things around. The Duchess, or Meghan as she prefers to be called, listens intently.
At the end of the day, we're all just women. We all have a story to tell.
I first met Meghan Markle 18 months ago, shortly before she married Prince Harry. We went for lunch at a restaurant in London, sitting in a corner where she went unnoticed and undisturbed. She ate monkfish, offering me some when I expressed my food envy, and we discussed some of our shared passions: mental health, running, yoga.
It was, bar the odd talk of the impending royal wedding, no different to many of the lunches I have with girlfriends, and when people asked me afterwards what she was like, I felt a little disappointed to have to answer honestly that she was really not that much different from the rest of us.
We kept in touch. It was Meghan who had encouraged her then boyfriend to do the podcast about his mental health with me, and I felt we were on the same wavelength. I saw her a couple of weeks before the Tom Bradby interview came out, just after they had got back from their tour of Africa. Then, as in the interview, her eyes glistened when I asked her how she was. But if I have learnt anything about Meghan in the time I have known her, it is that she is a doer, not a wallower. She lives in the solution, not the problem.
She told me that she didn't want people to love her – she just wanted them to be able to hear her. I have found that this is what the Duchess of Sussex stands for: using her voice to help give one to people less privileged than her.
So that is what we set out to do. Certain sections of our still buttoned-up society may not like it, but the Duchess of Sussex is, by giving the kind of open interview she did to Bradby, also giving the women she is meeting today permission to be open.
When you strip all the layers away as people and especially as women, we can find deep connection with each other … a shared understanding
There is a point where Tanya apologises for her tears. Meghan reaches for a box of tissues and hands them to her. In this room, these apologies are not necessary. For the Duchess, showing vulnerability is not a weakness. On the contrary – it is one of humanity's greatest strengths.
"I was talking about this with someone the other day," continues Meghan. "We get into this habit of wanting things done immediately nowadays. There's a culture of instant gratification, of the instant fix. But we aren't mechanical objects that need to be fixed. You're a wounded creature that needs to be healed, and that takes time. And that's what I love about this place. It gives you the support to heal."
The Duchess's critics will no doubt turn their noses up at this language of healing. But she is not doing this for them. Women like Halimot, a victim of child exploitation who, thanks to Luminary, can proudly show Meghan the business cards she has just had printed out bearing the name of her new catering company.
These are the people who matter to Meghan Markle.
In the days since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's interview with Bradby, there has been much speculation about the couple. They are in torment. They are at breaking point. They are planning to flee the country and move to America. In reality, though, the situation is not quite so attention-grabbing.
For one, there is the not so small matter of a six-month-old baby to deal with, and all that this entails (weaning, feeding, an almost permanent state of exhaustion – Meghan tells me that while her husband has flown to Japan in his role as a patron for the RFU, she and Archie will be watching the Rugby World Cup final, Archie in an England babygro).
But, secondly, I get the distinct impression that Meghan has accepted the strange situation in which she finds herself: she is damned if she does, and she is damned if she doesn't, and being the kind of person she is, she's going to carry on doing, thank you very much.
It is hard to believe, in the current climate, that just two and a bit years ago, when I did my podcast with Prince Harry, he was lauded for speaking openly and honestly about his feelings, and how close he came to a breakdown. Now that same openness he was once praised for is – in some quarters at least – being used against him.
Whereas in 2017 he was a huge force for good, helping men in particular to realise that mental health issues can happen to anyone, now he stands accused of being too privileged to be allowed to express anything other than endless gratitude.
But there is no doubting that this openness and honesty helps the couple to connect with people on a level that other royals might struggle to reach. Meghan, in jeans, adidas trainers and a shirt today, is pretty quickly absorbed into the task in hand, rolling up sleeves, decorating cakes, and taking time with each woman to hear their story.
"I find that when you strip all the layers away, as people, and especially as women, we can find deep connection with each other, and a shared understanding," she says.
"Our lives may be different, our backgrounds, our experiences, all varied, but I find that in these moments of connection it becomes abundantly clear that our hopes, our fears, our insecurities, the things that make us tick… well, those are very much the same. And there's comfort in that."
Telegraph UK
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