The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are making a number of appearances around Cambridgeshire today (June 23). So far Will and Kate have visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge as well as East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH) in Milton.
The pair have been welcomed with open arms and wide smiles from adoring fans who lined Trumpington Street outside the Fitz, where their first ever portrait was revealed. At EACH the royals were met by pupils from a local school and by the families of children who have been helped by EACH.
This afternoon, Kate Middleton and Prince William's will visit the Cambridgeshire County Day at Newmarket Racecourse, in honour of the Platinum Jubilee, as the inaugural Cambridgeshire County Day has been planned in celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's 70 years of service.
Though the Jubilee celebrations were more than two weeks ago now, crowds are gathering in Newmarket today for the county festivities, where more than 6,000 visitors are expected.
live blog:
This live blog was created when I was on the royal rota during my time at Cambridgeshire Live as a news reporter. While out on patch, I covered the now Prince and Princess of Wales’ visit to Cambridge at a hospice and racecourse while reporting directly back to my team who published the posts on a live blog. This showed great team work in creating content together and allowed us to publish posts fast so our readers could read the updates in real-time.
I sent in various live updates, including direct quotes from the Prince and Princess of Wales. One moment that I caught on video was Kate’s interaction with a girl called Willow Bamber while painting at the hospice, this led to a longer feature being written while on patch about the sweet interaction. This story can be seen here: Excitement in the air as Prince William and Kate create artwork with Cambs children
For this longer feature, I ensured all quotes and names of the family members were correct, with fast and accurate copy from time spent at the hospice with Kate Middleton and Prince William. We were given permission for everyone at the hospice to be photographed and video’d so there was no issue with seeking permission before publication at it had already been granted.
This coverage was huge for Cambridgeshire Live as Kate and William were hugely popular with our audience and were visiting the area.
Kate Middleton hand painting with Willow Bamber during a visit to the hospice in Cambridge
Audience engagement:
Throughout my day on the royal rota I shared some tweets with live updates and photos from my personal account to document what I was doing and to engage with my audience. These gained some great engagement with over 100 retweets each and over 1K likes (see below).
Tweets published while on the royal rota
After my day on the royal rota I shared a further tweet reflecting on the day alongside three photos. This received a huge engagement on X, formerly Twitter, with 2K likes, 139 retweets and 33 comments. The following day I shared another tweet which helped to direct the audience to the Cambridgeshire Live coverage of the story I wrote while on patch. This post received 788 likes and 65 retweets.
Tweets published after the royal rota