A call to positive action from Sussex Squad. The many articles written about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but more particularly, the Duchess of Sussex, have not waned even though it was announced that they would be taking a much needed break from their official Royal Duties. The past three years have indeed been very difficult for me, as a fan of this Royal couple, having to sit and read so many articles written about the Duchess, and listen to opinions expressed about her, all from the comfort of people’s home and from people who do not know her, but who express opinions as if they have interacted with her.
Yes, I am saying it has been difficult for me, having to read articles or listen to news articles about the Duchess being constantly bashed. So one can only imagine what these past three years have been for her having to live through all this during pregnancy, giving birth and still having to adjust to life in a new country, different customs added to which Royal culture and then having to deal with the whole world’s opinions and why everyone thinks they know what is good for her and how she should or should not behave.
I know the Duchess said she made a conscious effort not to read anything, whether good or bad, but let’s be honest, the constant noise about her has been hard to avoid, even if that were her wish. In the interview she gave to Tom Bradby, we all heard from her own mouth how difficult things have been, as a newlywed, wife and then mother, and especially marrying into a family which has its own reporters and media machine to report on everything that the Royal Family does.
An open Letter of Support for Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Sussex
The only way the monarchy can survive, we have been told, is by public opinion. And so over the years, stories have been fed to the media, different camps within the Royal family have courted various reporters so that the public’s opinion of them remained positive. This has meant some Royals selling out their own to gain favour in the sight of the general public.
Fascination about the British Royal family, but more particularly since Duchess Meghan married into the family, has gone into overdrive, whether you are a fan of her or not. She is not the only one in the Royal Family who has caused a media sensation. During my time, I would say that when it was reported that Prince Charles was to be married to Princess Diana, the British print media (which was all that we had to get information about this couple) went into overdrive and the reporters got into a frenzy over the bride-to-be. Reporting and photographs of her gave a lot of paparazzi instant wealth.
Whilst Duchess Meghan has not had to endure paparazzi, what she has been put through, however, has been a malicious campaign in an attempt to destroy her marriage, break her down and cause harm to her husband and now son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor. Out of the negative reportage, birth was given to the Sussex Squad. The Sussex Squad are a group of people who got together to debunk the negative reportage of the Duchess of Sussex. Podcasts, Websites, Twitter handles, Instagram pages were set up. The Squad became vocal and they made their intentions clear that if Duchess Meghan could not speak up because of restrictions placed on her as a Senior Royal Family member, then the Squad would speak for her and also defend her.
My category of the Sussex Squad is as follows:
- Look out post marshals – Prayer warriors – Those who pray daily for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
- Ground Soldiers – Those who report trolls and we in turn report them and block
- Foot soldiers – Those who drag other Royals for failure to defend the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
- Airfield Marshalls – Those who record podcasts and write articles and opinion pieces dragging Royal Reporters who spew lies and mistruths about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
In so doing, the Squad has raised huge sums of money in support of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s charities and patronages. To name a few, these are;
- Baby Sussex Baby Shower
- CAMFED
- The Mayhew
- The SmartWorks Capsule Collection
- British Vogue
- Together Cookbook
- Sussex Great Forest
The Sussex Squad, as it were, put their money where their mouth is. Not only did they support the various charities, patronages and passions of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but also other great initiatives have been born such as the Sussex Great Forest, a tree planting initiative. The target was to plant 10,000 tree seedlings worldwide, from November 2019 until Archie’s First Birthday in May 2020.
The initiative settled on 4 charities involved with tree planting, to enable Sussex supporters to plant trees in the royals’ names. These are UK based, Tree Sisters and One Tree Planted, UK and Africa based, International Tree Foundation as well as Kenya based The Green Belt Movement. Supporters were equally given the option to plant a tree in a pot if weather conditions were unfavourable for planting in the ground to be transferred before Archie’s first birthday. Within one week of its launch, the target had been reached, and is still ongoing.
Websites such as Meghanpedia have people with families and professions of their own willing to volunteer their time and resources to research and then write articles, accompanied with “receipts” to debunk the negative stories, so readers get to see the systematic agenda of the British media to destroy, malign and crush Duchess Meghan with their mistruths, lies and more lies. The Sussex Squad were not afraid to call out so-called Royal Reporters who dared to continually spread lies about Duchess Meghan some of which have resulted in these reporters shutting down their Twitter accounts. Trolls who have opened Twitter accounts under the guise of anonymity have been called out, reported on and blocked for their malicious trolling of Duchess Meghan.
Of course there still remains some TV presenters who cannot go a day without talking about Duchess Meghan even though she and her family are away on a family break. The announcement of their break during Christmas, which meant that the media will be denied of the photoshoot to aid their dwindling coffers, was yet another excuse for them to accuse the Sussex’s of denying the Queen an opportunity to spend time with them over the festive season. Indeed, it was accompanied by a laughable and quite pathetic attempt of implying that this may be the last Christmas for the Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. How low of the media to stoop?
My question remains; why should Mama Doria be denied spending time with her ONLY CHILD and ONLY GRANDCHILD and ONLY SON IN LAW? The stupidity of the media’s outrage was just another attempt to guilt trip the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to succumb to their false outrage. I must add that other members of the Royal family have also spent Christmas with their in-laws. Besides, the Queen lives within a very short distance of where the Sussex’s live so I am sure she sees her grandson and his family as often as time permits.
With the Sussex’s on a well-deserved break I naively thought things would die down and that they would at least be afforded some respite from media nonsense. After all, for the past three years, the Royal Reporters, TV presenters have fed the general public a daily diet of “He is only Sixth in Line”, “He will never be king”, “Meghan Markle is irrelevant”, “Meghan Markle should stay out of the public and stop talking so the public will miss her”, and so on.
However, when the Sussex’s announced that they would be taking a well-earned break, in line with what other Royals had done, without anyone missing a step, they were accused of being insensitive; why would they want to spend time with the Duchess’s mother? All this was tripe to me so I paid no mind because I knew it was the media’s way of drawing attention to themselves.
As usual, the Sussex Squad took to IG and Twitter to defend our favourite family. But my eyebrows were raised when I saw an article by Angela Mollard headlined “Megan Markle: Archie will be ‘spoilt brat’ due to Prince Harry’s royal rift, says expert” for The Express. I was outraged but after a few days of mulling over this headline, I realised that it was yet another snipe at the Royal couple and also to get the Sussex Squad outraged enough to keep their negative headline in people’s minds. Part of this article is to alert the Sussex Squad that whilst I applaud our defence of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, come 2020 we really need to strategise. I have seen daily tweets of negativity from Squad members, tweeting such things like what the media did in the past and what people expect the media to do.
We all know how low the media will go, especially with this latest article from Angela, that is setting the tone for 2020 but let us be more strategic and not retweet these kinds of articles. We are engaging them and we are also contributing in keeping the likes of Angela in the public. Come 2020 let us drag them yes but let us tweet positivity, support their charities and encourage one another. Let our outrage be directed towards supporting their charities and leave the murky swamp for the Royal Reporters to drown themselves in.
