AMANDA PLATELL: Harry’s silence over his father and sister-in-law Kate shows he has never been more isolated

What a shock it was to hear on Wednesday that both the Princess of Wales and the King were undergoing serious medical treatment.

Kate, we discovered, had already had abdominal surgery requiring her to stay in hospital for up to a fortnight and Charles will soon have a ‘procedure’ for an enlarged prostate.

Yet not half as shocking as it must have been for Prince Harry who, reportedly, did not know about Kate’s or even his father’s condition until he saw media bulletins.

Buckingham Palace is said to have made every effort to inform all senior members of the Royal Family, including Harry. 

But the public announcement about Charles came at 3.25pm, which is 7.25am in California.

Prince Harry reportedly did not know about Kate’s or even his father’s condition until he saw media bulletins

Kate, we discovered, had already had abdominal surgery requiring her to stay in hospital for up to a fortnight and Charles will soon have a ‘procedure’ for an enlarged prostate

William is pictured driving away from the hospital that Kate is staying in yesterday

So perhaps Harry woke up to see a news flash before the message from the Palace. How isolated it must have made him feel. No time for a call from Pa to tell his son not to worry.  

No word from William to explain what was going on with the sister-in-law he was once so close to.

Since the news broke, the Sussexes have remained silent, not even issuing a public message of support for the King or Kate.

Perhaps they’ve done so privately. I do hope so, although given the desperately strained relations between the Prince and Princess of Montecito and the royals, I fear it is unlikely. But this is surely the moment for all sides to make amends.

It must be excruciating for Harry to be so far away, so out of contact. All too soon after his beloved grandmother the Queen died, he has again been hit by a sharp reminder of human frailty in his own family.

Promoting his memoir Spare in January last year, Harry was asked by U.S. broadcaster Anderson Cooper if he still spoke to or texted William. He said: ‘Currently, no . . . I look forward to us being able to find peace.’

How this petulant prince, who yesterday withdrew his libel claim against The Mail on Sunday, must now rue his grand-standing demands that the royals apologise to him.

I have been Harry’s fiercest critic for the abominable way he has treated his family. And yet I can’t help feeling sorry for him now.

Harry is not a cruel man. He is kind, compassionate and loving like his mother Diana — and I cannot believe he is anything but distraught about his Pa and Kate.

Good news for men with trouser troubles as it is proved popping a Viagra tablet in a vase of flowers stops them from drooping for two weeks while others wilt in days. Saves blokes from embarrassment at the chemist’s counter. They can now say: ‘Not for me, I need them to stiffen up the wife’s gladioli.’

 Fifty? Kate’s still a wild child

What’s not to love about Kate Moss’s £100,000 50th birthday party? 

She took over Paris’s Michelin-starred Laurent Restaurant and partied with daughter Lila, best girlfriends from decades ago, boyfriend Nikolai von Bismarck, 37, and her mates from the fashion world.

What’s not to love about Kate Moss’s £100,000 50th birthday party?

Huge admiration that she has a hot and much younger lover, pictured together, looks as fabulous as ever and, even after becoming a wellness guru, is only teetotal when she wants to be and happily chain-smokes throughout her party.

My kind of girl.

Steel giant Tata is to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, South Wales — with the expected loss of 2,500 jobs — and replace them with eco-friendly electric furnaces, which will take years to build. Yes, we all want a greener world but at what cost to lives? As the closure of the coal mines in the 1980s proved — you close a pit, you destroy a community.

 Telling the tooth

The British Dental Association blames Tory NHS cuts for more than 100,000 children in five years having teeth so rotten they needed hospital surgery.

The only ones to blame for that are parents who feed them junk food and sugary drinks. As a report showed, children go to primary school having never owned a toothbrush — let alone learned how to use one.

 Plaudits to ITV for having the guts to commission what was, on the face of it, a dreary drama about postmasters with the not very catchy title of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office. Their instincts were bang on with more than 10 million tuning in for the finale. And on top of all that, the drama finally led to action over this terrible injustice.

 Marie braves the bra

Posing in an exquisitely skimpy hot pink thong and bra, ageless former supermodel Marie Helvin asks defiantly: ‘Who says a woman can’t model lingerie in her 70s?’ To which most women over 40 after a couple of kids would reply: ‘Me!’

Marie attributes her ageless figure to choosing not to have children and staying single. 

Marie attributes her ageless figure to choosing not to have children and staying single

But I’m betting mere mortal mums her age, surrounded by kids, grandkids and a messy husband, wouldn’t trade places with her for a nanosecond.

Well, OK then, maybe they would . . . just for a few minutes.

So why did Meghan and Harry appropriate the Queen’s nickname Lilibet for their daughter? Why didn’t she look to her own family? I guess Princess Doria of Sussex, honouring her mum, or Princess Doris of Sussex, for her paternal grandmother, don’t have the regal ring.

 Train sets haven’t hit buffers

 Sad news for toy train enthusiasts such as Rod Stewart and Pete Waterman as last year’s National Model Railway Exhibition in Birmingham is declared the last — because enthusiasts are so old. 

Not true! My nephew Pete recently unearthed the train set his Dad left him and cleaned it up for his three-year-old-son, Michael. He’s in awe of the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard, restored and still tooting.

 Ex-footballers crying foul over the rise of female footy pundits will be spluttering into their beer after learning first-class presenter Laura Woods is a millionaire. Woods pocketed £250,000 at TalkSport but her earnings shot up by £600,000 even before her transfer last year to TNT Sports. Enough to make an old misogynist weep.

 Westminster wars

• Having presided over the highest tax hike in living memory, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt now promises tax cuts for everyone before the election. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves vows the same. Do they take us for idiots? Whoever wins will get the same note ex-Treasury chief Liam Byrne left to the coalition government: ‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards and good luck.’
• Any chance of getting the Rwanda Bill done means it has to pass through the House of Lords where it was presented this week to cries of ‘Shame!’ Why should pompous, unelected peers who have never endured a hotel full of immigrants next to their grand homes decide on levels of migration in the UK? Abolish the lot of them!

Heartening to learn the real reason comedian Sandi Toksvig quit The Great British Bake Off was because it ‘atrophied my brain watching meringues dry’. 

The show has always divided opinion. Millions love it but others, like me, don’t. I’d rather swim to Alaska naked than make a baked one.

Heartening to learn the real reason comedian Sandi Toksvig quit The Great British Bake Off was because it ‘atrophied my brain watching meringues dry’

Shock news even in these hard up times that we’re tempted by no-frills funerals without even a brief service. Some packages just drop loved one’s cremated ashes at your home for a ‘celebration of life’ party with a £1,500 bill. Crikey, call that a celebration? I’ve set aside twice as much — just for drinks. 

Perhaps the reason the apocalyptic movie Oppenheimer is scooping all the awards over the relentlessly cheerful Barbie is that it taps not into a pink world but a dark one we are beginning to fear — with the possibility of World War III when everyone actually has nukes.