Inside King Charles' emergency trip to hospice as he cuts it close

King Charles cut it incredibly close during a secret trip last weekend.

His Majesty quietly travelled to Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham to honour Dame Sarah Anderson on Friday, December 5, just 48 hours before her death. Anderson, who founded the suicide prevention charity The Listening Place, a charity dedicated to suicide prevention, passed away last Sunday.

Details of the trip emerged this week, when Anderson’s friend Sir Jeremy Hunt opened up about the King’s kind gesture during his own investiture at Windsor Castle on Tuesday, December 9. Sir Jeremy, who described Dame Sarah as a close friend, said the King’s private journey south was “an incredible thing to do.”

Speaking after receiving his knighthood, he thanked the monarch directly for taking the time to see her in her final days. “I thanked him because he visited the hospice last week and gave a damehood to a friend of mine, which was an incredible thing to do because she sadly passed away on Sunday,” he said, adding that Dame Sarah was “incredibly moved” by the gesture.

During their chat, Sir Jeremy said the King even asked what he was working on. “I said I was writing a book on how to make Britain great again, and he said, ‘Well, keep trying’, with a twinkle in his eye,” he recalled.

Sir Jeremy admitted the moment left him “a bit overwhelmed and very humbled,” calling it a rare bright spot after years in the political spotlight. His family, he noted, felt the significance of the day just as strongly.