Duchess Kate's pink promise to brave Stenhousemuir girl Mila (5)

And it’s not every day someone as special as Mila, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for leukaemia, gets to ask the wife of the future British king if she is wearing a princess costume.

The heartwarming phone conversation, which was just released online, took place last year when Kate Middleton talked to Mila in a follow up for her Hold Still lockdown photograph initiative.

A picture – entitled Shielding Mila – showing Mila kissing her dad Scott through the window during the COVID-19 pandemic last year touched the Duchess so deeply she handpicked the image from thousands of entries to become one of the 100 Hold Still portraits that reflected life in the UK during the coronavirus crisis.

Mila was separated from her dad for seven weeks during the country’s first lockdown for seven weeks, after he had to go to work and could not risk bringing coronavirus into the family home.

During the phone call, which was posted on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s new YouTube channel, Mila asked the Duchess if she was wearing a costume.

"I’m not wearing a princess costume right now, I’m afraid Mila. Do you have lots of dressing-up outfits yourself?”

Mila said she did and told the Duchess her favourite colour was pink.

The Duchess replied: “OK, well I have to make sure I go and try and find myself a pink dress so that hopefully, when one day, Mila, we’ll get to meet, and then I’ll remember to wear my pink dress for you.”

During the call Mila also proudly proclaimed she knew all of the names of the Duchess’s children.

The Duchess also spoke to Mila’s mother Lynda, describing how she and the rest of the judging panel felt the Shielding Mila image was “such a powerful one”.

“It tells the story of this particular time and a very personal story to you, so thank you very for much for sharing it,” Kate said.

Three nightmare days in November 2019 changed the Sneddon family’s life forever and inspired a massive outpouring of goodwill from around the world for their young daughter.

The Sneddons thought Mila, then four-years-old, had the cold or some other minor condition when they took her to the GP on Tuesday, November 19, 2019.

Mila had just been attending nursery at Stenhousemuir Primary School as usual.

Mum Lynda said: “She was tired and a wee bit pale. I thought she might be a little anaemic. The GP did the standard checks and wanted to look at some bruising on the lower half of her legs.

“She had a feel of her tummy and identified quite quickly Mila’s spleen was enlarged.”

Things moved quickly after that as the GP referred the Sneddons to Forth Valley Royal Hospital for blood tests.

When the tests came back the doctors told Lynda and husband Scott that it was likely to be acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) – a rare type of cancer that affects white blood cells.