14 OCTOBER 2002
While meeting with young cancer patients and medical researchers at a Birmingham hospital on Friday, Princess Michael of Kent revealed her own close call with the disease. The 57-year-old royal spoke of the fear she felt last year when doctors told her she needed to undergo treatment for possible skin cancer.

“I had a skin cancer scare last year and it gave me a bit of a fright, but luckily it wasn’t serious,” said the Princess, who reportedly had a small amount of non-malignant tissue removed from her face. “At first I didn’t know whether it was going to be a big thing or not but it made me stop and take stock.”

The mother-of-two and patron of children’s charity Sparks said she now takes precautions to ensure she stays healthy in the future. “I had too much sunshine without protection as a child because there were not the warnings about skin cancer there are today,” she explained. “Now I am very careful in the sun and I always wear a hat and cover myself up as I am quite fair.”

Princess Michael made the revelations during visits to the Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.