The temper was somber Friday afternoon within the part of Manhattan’s West Village that some folks name Little Britain after Catherine, Princess of Wales, introduced that she was being handled for most cancers.
At Myers of Keswick, a store on Hudson Avenue that sells British items like Hobnobs biscuits, Wilkin & Sons marmalade and steak and ale pie, Jennifer Myers-Pulidore, the proprietor, mentioned she had watched the announcement stay whereas fielding alarmed texts from her father, Peter Myers. He opened the shop 39 years in the past and is now retired and dwelling again in Keswick, England.
“I really feel for her,” mentioned Ms. Myers-Pulidore, 45, who was born in New York and grew up spending summers in Keswick. With three youngsters of her personal, she mentioned she may relate to the princess’s want to handle the matter together with her household earlier than discussing it publicly.
“I perceive wanting to guard the youngsters,” Ms. Myers-Pulidore mentioned. “I can’t think about dwelling within the limelight as they do.”
She mentioned she had not stored up with the latest wave of hypothesis on-line about why Catherine had not been seen a lot in public since present process stomach surgical procedure earlier this 12 months. Ms. Myers-Pulidore had nothing good to say about those that had unfold wild rumors.
“It’s terrible. It’s form of pathetic that she couldn’t even have time in non-public,” she mentioned. “It nearly makes me suppose she had no different possibility however to come back clear.”
For Ms. Myers-Pulidore, the information stirred painful recollections of Princess Diana, a earlier Princess of Wales to whom the shop proprietor considers Catherine a non secular inheritor.
“She, in England, is liked,” Ms. Myers-Pulidore mentioned of Catherine. “Individuals consider her because the folks’s princess.”
After Diana’s dying; the dying of Queen Elizabeth II; King Charles’s most cancers analysis; and estrangement between William, Prince of Wales, and his brother, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, Ms. Myers-Pulidore mentioned she anxious concerning the British royal household’s future.
“I hope they may make it,” she mentioned.
Outdoors the store, Richard Barnett winced whereas discussing the information.
“It’s all very unhappy,” mentioned Mr. Barnett, a London native who has lived in New York for 35 years. He added that he hoped Catherine’s remedy would achieve success and that her restoration could be swift and comfy.
“Want her one of the best,” he mentioned. “And peace and quiet.”
Requested whether or not he had adopted the latest gossip and hypothesis about Catherine that Ms. Myers-Pulidore had condemned, Mr. Barnett nodded.
“It’s good she stopped the rumors,” he mentioned.
Outdoors Tea & Sympathy, a British restaurant a couple of blocks away on Greenwich Avenue, Dave Heenan shook his head when requested concerning the information.
“It’s terrible. I’m devastated — the entire royal household, they’re cursed!” mentioned Mr. Heenan, 81, who moved to New York from Newcastle, England, in 1963. He mentioned that, like different British folks, he had come to like Catherine and was enthusiastic about her future.
“She’s the one member of the royal household who may actually carry that crown,” he mentioned.
One optimistic factor he may say was that he had been in a position to share his emotions with fellow English women and men: “It brings English folks collectively.”
Iain Anderson, Tea & Sympathy’s supervisor, mentioned he had turn into involved about Catherine lately as she stayed out of the general public eye and rumors about her flew. He mentioned that to him, the announcement on Friday felt compelled.
“Possibly they needed to say one thing due to the general public stress,” Mr. Anderson, who’s initially from Gloucestershire, England, mentioned. “In the event that they needed to open up about this and so they didn’t wish to, that’s unlucky.”
Like Ms. Myers-Pulidore, he mentioned he had a grim feeling of déjà vu.
“We’ve had all this earlier than with Girl Diana,” he mentioned
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Michael West, a Briton dwelling in Manhattan, mentioned he was reminded of Queen Elizabeth II’s dying two years in the past in addition to King Charles’s most cancers analysis.
“It simply appears as if bother is available in threes,” he mentioned as he handed the British Consulate on Second Avenue. “And it simply appears as if, for that household in the meanwhile, that maybe bother is available in tens.”
Mr. West is initially from a village known as Higham, well-known because the place the place Charles Dickens died. He mentioned that though Catherine had not been born into royalty, she had match properly into her position as a Windsor.
“Amongst my household and buddies, folks had been proud of them,” he mentioned of the household, including, “They do their job with grace.”
Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.
