Royal visit: Prince Andrew visits sick kids at Royal Children’s Hospital

HE might not have the same pop star appeal to youngsters as Will and Kate, but Victoria’s littlest patients were excited to meet the man they all know as “the Queen’s son”.

Prince Andrew laughs with patients in the Kelpie Learning Space at the Royal Children's Hospital. Picture: David Caird

HE might not have the same pop star appeal to youngsters as Will and Kate, but Victoria’s littlest patients were excited to meet the man they all know as “the Queen’s son”.

Prince Andrew toured the Royal Children’s Hospital, sitting in on a class and a performance of songs written and recorded by the patients.

One of the children he met was five-year-old Ned Isham, who is being treated for cancer for the second time. The youngster presented the Duke of York with a toy meerkat dressed in theatre scrubs.

While Prince Andrew followed expected formalities — including signing the royal guest book — the children provided candid moments. Their burning question of the day was: If he is a prince, then where is the princess?

This was a busy second day of a 10-day trip to the eastern states, which included a visit to the laboratories of the adjoining Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

He saw demonstrations of live beating heart cells and watched the method of turning stem cells into “mini kidneys” for drug screening.

The duke was particularly interested in MCRI’s allergy research and its new technology projects.

Prince also laid a wreath at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and will head to Brisbane on Wednesday to be briefed on next year’s Commonwealth Games.

Originally published as Royal visit: Prince Andrew visits sick kids at Royal Children’s Hospital