Sophie, Countess of Wessex Isn't Afraid to Play on the Floor with Kids
Sitting on the floor playing with toy cars is not the average way an adult royal spends the afternoon. But the Countess of Wessex did just that today as she met with families at charity Footsteps Foundation.
Sophie spent the day in Oxfordshire and visited the Footsteps center in Dorchester where she met two-year-old Matthew Johnston who was taking part in a physiotherapy session. Sitting down on the carpet, the Countess seemed to be having a great time as she encouraged Matthew to push a toy car down a slope into a line-up of other toys.
Matthew, who will be three in February, has cerebral palsy and comes to the center for three-week blocks of daily therapy. Footsteps has been running for 11 years and provides intensive physiotherapy for children with neurological disorders.
“She’s so lovely and she made us all feel at ease,” Matthew’s dad David said of Sophie. “It was just so normal and she was just playing with him like any child, which is what you want... For someone of such importance to recognize what good this place does is great. I think it’s great for everybody to see it.”
David told Sophie that Matthew has a twin sister Lucy, who also has cerebral palsy and comes for two weeks of therapy as she is more severely affected by the condition.
David said about the therapy: “We see massive improvements and we can go home and work on the stuff they’ve been doing to continue the good work they’ve been doing. So it’s really important that they’re here. I think the intense physiotherapy - they are still very young - and we feel that doing it as early as possible is the key to getting them hopefully walking one day. You can’t get this anywhere else so it’s really important that we’re here.”
Footsteps was established by Pip Hoyer Millar MBE after discovering intensive physiotherapy in Poland while searching for something to help her daughter Minty who has cerebral palsy. “I was told that she would never walk, she would never develop beyond the capabilities of a four-year-old,” Millar recalled, adding: “She was given no physio at all. So I went off searching for something.”
When Minty was 10 years old Millar discovered a centre in Poland. “I took her there over two years. We did ten one month visits and by the end of that she was walking,” Millar said. “Before that she couldn’t even stand. It was so extraordinary, my husband and I felt we just had to bring it back to the country.”
Of meeting with the Countess, Millar said, “I was so proud to be able to take her round and for her to meet the families. And she was just an absolute natural with the children. It was so genuine the way she interacted with them.”
Minty, who is passionate about art and is involved in art projects around Oxford, described meeting the Countess as “awesome.” Of the therapy she's received, she says: “It’s given me a chance in life.”
The charity has grown from an outbuilding in the family’s house to a center now used by 200 families. It also provides financial support for families who cannot afford the services, and needs to £230,000 per year to cover those costs.
Earlier in the day, the Countess also visited the Sylva Foundation, which supports Britain’s trees and woodlands. She tried her hand at "planing" a piece of wood using a “razor-sharp” hand plane. Head of the Wood School Joe Bray, who demonstrated the technique, said of the visit: “It’s obviously nice for someone with her stature to lend her support to the type work we’re doing.”
At the site the Countess also opened the House of Wessex project which is a reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon era building.
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