Kate Middleton has offered a powerful reminder that no cancer journey is the same

The Princess of Wales’s video about completing her chemotherapy is an inspiring moment that will resonate deeply with many people (“Kate Middleton’s intimate family film is the most emotional royal home movie ever”, Tuesday 10 September).

As a public figure, her transparency around her cancer journey, alongside the royal family’s support, is a powerful reminder of the emotional and physical toll this disease takes on individuals. Cancer, whether it strikes a public figure or an everyday individual, affects all aspects of life, including the daunting task of returning to work.

As Kate resumes her royal duties, it is essential to recognise that returning to work after cancer is a deeply personal and often complex journey. For some, it might symbolise a return to normality, while for others, it serves as a reminder of the immense challenges faced during treatment. Fatigue, both physical and mental, is a common side effect that lingers long after treatment has ended. The pressure to meet public expectations can intensify these challenges, making it crucial for her engagements to be carefully considered and flexible.

Kate’s determination to continue her work while managing her health is commendable, but it also underscores the importance of a phased and thoughtful return to professional life after a cancer diagnosis. Just as the public must be patient and supportive, businesses and employers across the UK must also recognise the need for flexibility and understanding when supporting employees during treatment and in their return to work.

Her experience is a powerful example of the resilience many of us will have to demonstrate when faced with a cancer diagnosis – but it is also a reminder that no cancer journey is the same.

Barbara Wilson

Founder of Working With Cancer

As the winter fuel debate goes on, may I remind readers that under the new Labour government, the commitment to the triple lock means that pensions increased by £900 this year alone (“There are good reasons why the winter fuel payment must be scrapped – but no one’s talking about them”, Tuesday 10 September).

Thanks to Labour’s plan for clean hometown energy our bills will be cut for good, and under Labour millions of homes will be upgraded with insulation and low carbon heating too.

So unlike the Conservative Party, who crashed the economy and saw living standards plummet, Labour is totally committed to all pensioners in the United Kingdom and to fixing the foundations of the economy.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Sean O’Grady suggests in his recent column that if the government’s economic strategy works, it may be possible for the winter fuel allowance to be restored before the next election. This would be a mistake.

What would be the point of spending tax revenues on giving millions of better-off pensioners a bonus they do not need?

However strongly the economy may be growing, there will always be higher priorities than this for public spending. If there is money available, pensioners would be more grateful for an effective national care service.

John Wilkin

Bury St Edmunds

Keir Starmer and the chancellor Rachel Reeves both know that pensioners are an easy target. Pensioners are not going to glue their hands to a freezing cold motorway, nor are they going to lay siege to Downing Street. Instead, many will die of hyperthermia in their unheated homes.

They will not accept the fact that the savings made through cutting the winter fuel allowance will not be that great. Moreover, they refuse to tell us how much of the pension budget is clawed back through tax paid by more wealthy pensioners.

No. This is not a hard choice by Labour. It is callous indifference.

Piers Chalinor

London

I’m still puzzled by Labour’s failure to pitch firmly its arguments for cutting the winter fuel allowance.

The unions’ early pay rises were a necessary catch-up for years of salary freezes, hampering recruitment. The winter fuel allowance was a generous response to past fuel cost rises, but has been overtaken in value by rises in the state pensions.

For many pensioners, it was such an embarrassment that they gave it away to charity – costing the government even more in Gift Aid refunds.

More pertinently, who are these impoverished pensioners who cannot manage on the state pension?

Discounting those with lifelong disabilities, who need help, many of them are those who have always been on benefits, who did not have jobs, had poor education, can’t balance a budget, and made bad choices.  

It is not the role of our government to compensate directly for the fluctuating price of commodities. There have been sharp rises in the price of many necessities, but a direct and age-related grant for each of them is clearly out of the question.

Better to spend money on insulation rather than fuel. Better to give good quality, free education to the young than prop up those minorities with the loudest lobby groups.

Beryl Pratley

Broughton