Camilla opens cancer centre

Britain's Duchess of Cornwall admitted she was ''smitten'' as she opened a state-of-the-art £2.3million cancer centre.

Britain's Duchess of Cornwall, admitted she was "smitten" as she opened a state-of-the-art £2.3million cancer centre in Cheltenham yesterday (19.10.10)

Camilla - who has been the president of Maggie's Centres since 2008 - opened the new charity facility in Cheltenham yesterday (19.10.10), where she told staff and guest she was proud of their hard work.

The royal was given a tour of the new Gloucestershire centre - which will offer care to thousands of cancer sufferers - before presenting a rose to the garden and cutting a cake in front of local dignitaries, staff and patients.

She told guests: "May I say before I go how incredibly proud I am to be president of Maggie's. It was a visit I made to the centre in Edinburgh and I saw this incredible building and I was smitten. When I was asked to be president I couldn't really say no."

The drop-in facility, based at Cheltenham General Hospital, offers a relaxing environment for sufferers and their families with a psychologist, nutritionist, creative writer and art therapist on site. A library has also been built packed with information for those whose lives have been affected by cancer.

Hilary Plumtree, whose husband died from cancer, helped raise the money needed to build Maggie's in Cheltenham.

She said: "I think the centre is absolutely amazing.

"As someone who has lived with cancer I do realise how much support carers and their extended families need."

Maggie's Centres are the vision of designer and landscape architect Maggie Keswick Jencks which resulted from her own experience of cancer.