Duchess of Kent 'never forgave herself' as tragedy sent her 'spiralling into depression'

Katharine, Duchess of Kent, who died on Thursday aged 92, had a reputation as one of the kindest and most empathetic royals.

Her quiet generosity drew public attention at Wimbledon in 1993 when Jana Novotná narrowly lost the Ladies’ singles final. As the Czech tennis star was clearly overcome with emotion, the duchess instinctively put an arm around her.

“How could you go up to someone and say: ‘Oh, bad luck!’” She later told the Telegraph. “It was awful for her. She was crying so she got a hug, quite rightly.”

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It was a small sign of a generous nature that she was known for throughout her life. The duchess was also determined to live as normal a life as possible, spending over a decade as a music teacher at a Hull primary school.

“I was just known as Mrs Kent,” she said, explaining that her royal status was kept a closely-guarded secret at the school for 13 years: “Only the head knew who I was,” she revealed. “The parents didn’t know and the pupils didn’t know. No one ever noticed. There was no publicity about it at all - it just seemed to work.”

Another little-known detail of Katharine’s life was the heartbreaking still birth of her son, Patrick, in 1975.

After marrying the late Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent, in 1961, Katharine had three children; George, the Earl of St Andrews who was born in 1962, society beauty Lady Helen Taylor, who was born in 1964 and Lord Nicholas Windsor, who arrived six years later.

But, in 1975 when Katharine was 42, she contracted German measles during her fourth pregnancy. Under medical advice – and after consulting a priest – the duchess underwent a termination, for which she "never quite forgave herself", according to reports.

Then, two years later, she gave birth to her stillborn son, Patrick. The grief was overwhelming.

“It had the most devastating effect on me,” she revealed in a candid interview. “I had no idea how devastating such a thing could be to any woman. It has made me extremely understanding of others who suffer a still-birth.”

She suffered from acute depression as a result but attempted to cope with her grief by throwing herself into royal duties.

Two years later, all that emotion came to a head and she was admitted to hospital for seven weeks’ of “treatment and supervised rest”.

“I think it would be a fairly rare individual who didn’t cave in under those circumstances,” she reflected in 1997. “It was a horrible thing to happen and I didn’t think I gave myself time to get over it.

"It was not a good period but once I’d come out and returned to a state of normality I quickly realised that it does ­happen to a lot of people. I have never had depression since.”