Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie make joint virtual appearance for this cause

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie of York, daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, made a joint virtual appearance on Wednesday to discuss the challenges young people living with cancer are facing amid coronavirus pandemic.

Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who are honorary patrons of the Teenage Cancer Trust, spoke with six young people from across the North West who receive help from the charity's specialist nurses and youth support co-ordinators based at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester. Their mother Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, had opened the first facility of the charity in 1990.

While Eugenie joined the call from the Royal Lodge, where she is isolating with parents Prince Andrew and Sarah, and husband Jack Brooksbank, Beatrice did it from her future mother-in-law Nikki Shale's mansion where she is isolating with Shale and fiance Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.

Apart from the six patients, the York princesses were joined on the Zoom call by representatives from the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester. A lead nurse, Dave, and a youth support coordinator, Steve, were also a part of the call.

"We're just interested, I guess, to know how COVID has affected your treatment or how you've been feeling with the pandemic," Eugenie asked the group, after which one of the young people dealing with cancer told her: "It's completely different. It's affected pretty much everything. I've had treatment pushed back, because I'm going to be receiving a stem cell transplant."

Another revealed to the two granddaughters of Queen Elizabeth II that his treatment started in October, before lockdown, and therefore it has been difficult to shield from coronavirus exposure because he has to come into the hospital for his treatments.

"We've grown up with Teenage Cancer Trust, we've been part of this family our entire lives," the elder sister said while praising the work done by the trust to provide extra support to people during the global pandemic.

Meanwhile, one of the patients Darcy Shaw told Eugenie that seeing her wearing a backless wedding dress with her scoliosis scar visible helped to boost her confidence about showing her own surgery scars on neck and chest.

The 21-year-old said: "I've always struggled with my body image, way before I got diagnosed with cancer, and anxiety and mental health issues. I was quite recently diagnosed in February, and now have a scar on my neck and chest from surgery. And I thought to myself, well everything is going to plummet. But actually, the complete opposite has happened, and I put that entirely down to all the support I've had through the lockdown."

Eugenie praised Darcy by saying: "Woo - I love hearing that Darcy. I have a big old scar down my back and I'm proud to show it off."