The Londoner said the last five days have been the 'most surreal, mind blowing, humbling' of her life.
She launched the fund - to pay for research into personalised medicine for cancer patients and to support campaigns to raise awareness of bowel cancer, on Monday - with an initial goal of £250,000.
"It's quite surreal having a royal pop in at home, and yes you can imagine the cleaning antics and preparation went off the scale - but it was all irrelevant because William was so kind and he put us all at ease," she added.Prince William is a patron of the Royal Marsden Hospital, a specialist cancer treatment centre that will be one of the main beneficiaries of Dame Deborah's new fund, alongside Cancer Research UK and Bowel Cancer UK.
But, in exceptional circumstances, some are announced at other times of the year - as happened with NHS fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore's knighthood.
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