Visit from His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex
Dr Vance Spence welcomes
Prince Edward
The team introduced to the Prince
From left: Dr Neil Abbot,
Sara Cornwallis, David MacDonald,
Priscilla Wares, Dr Vance Spence
On 7th April 2009, ME Research UK was honoured with a visit from His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, who met the team and was introduced to our work.
During a morning visiting the headquarters of the Black Watch at Balhousie Castle in Perth, which included being shown the chief’s room dedicated to his grandmother, the late Queen Mother, His Royal Highness toured the grounds in which stands had been prepared by local primary schools and a display put on by Black Watch cadets (read more here). In the afternoon, His Royal Highness, accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of Perth and Kinross, Brigadier Melville Stewart Jameson, attended a function in the recently completed Perth Concert Hall, and then came to visit the Gateway Centre, the base of Perth and Kinross Voluntary Services and home of ME Research UK.
A display had been prepared of some of our research projects, and Prince Edward was welcomed by Dr Vance Spence, Chairman of ME Research UK, who made the introductions to each member of our team.
Dr Spence explained that despite its popular perception as ‘Yuppie Flu’, ME/CFS is a serious, often disabling, chronic illness, causing impaired mobility and disability in the majority of cases. Despite this, comparatively little serious biomedical research has been conducted or is presently being undertaken anywhere in the world, making ME Research UK one of the very few international charities focusing on biomedical aspects of the illness. He continued that the ideal scenario is for a ‘critical mass’ of investigators to be producing the ‘critical mass’ of biomedical data necessary to set the field alight — a huge task, but one that ME Research UK is determined to pursue.
The visit ended with tea and cakes at the Gateway centre with elderly service users and invited guests. As Dr Vance Spence said, “It was a delight to welcome His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, who each year visits every part of the United Kingdom at the request of Lord Lieutenants, charities and other organisations. His visits cover the whole spectrum of enterprise and initiative involving every aspect of life in the country each year, so it was marvellous to see the work of ME Research UK also honoured in this way.”
