Princess of Wales says nature was her sanctuary during cancer recovery

An interview from a guest-edited issue

The Princess of Wales spoke with the writer Robert Macfarlane for a special issue of Country Life, a rural and conservation magazine that Prince William guest-edited. The bumper issue came out on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, and coverage described the conversation as a rare interview about her illness. Kate, as she is widely known, announced her cancer diagnosis in March 2024, months after abdominal surgery at The London Clinic in January that year. In the interview she said cancer affects how a person thinks and feels, not only the body, and that recovery needs more than medicine.

Recovery as an uneven process

Doctors told her in hospital that her recovery would not follow a straight path. She described that warning as one of uneven progress, with setbacks alongside improvements, and said the process would take time. She finished chemotherapy in September and announced in January 2026 that she was in remission. She connected that idea to nature, arguing that periods of rest, reflection and renewal matter as much as growth.

“There will be good days and bad days, that it will take time.”

Nature as a sanctuary

Kate said nature asks nothing of people and neither judges them nor demands that they perform. She called the outdoors a space where a person can simply exist, and described it as a refuge she has instinctively sought out.

“It really has been my sanctuary and a place I've instinctively wanted to go.”

Her attachment to the natural world began in childhood, with hours spent in streams, picking blackberries and spending quiet time alone in an imagined world. She said those years gave her a freedom that rarely exists elsewhere, and she has carried that sense into her adult life.

Hope, community and a charity

Macfarlane told her he found hope in communities working together to protect rivers. Kate agreed and said that hope is most visible in the hardest moments.

“It is the sense of hope we find in the darkest of times.”

She encouraged people to find tasks they can do alongside others, and ways to connect and give back. She also praised Mind Over Mountains, a charity that combines walking in nature, mindfulness and time with experienced wellbeing counsellors.

Children, outdoors and family

The princess has long championed time outdoors for children as part of her work on early childhood development. She has voiced concern about children's growing anxiety in an increasingly digital world. Kate also described how she tries to give her three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, room to explore on their own. She said she reminds herself of that approach as a parent.