44 The Australian Women’s Weekly|JUNE 2018
he’s a 61-year-old
yoga teacher and
New Age-style therapist
who lives in an ochre-
painted bungalow
around the corner from
rock star Tina Turner’s
former Los Angeles
home. In the history of the House
of Windsor, there hasn’t been
a mother-in-law like Doria Ragland
Doria raised her only child alone
after her marriage broke down when
Meghan was six, and the pair have
an extraordinarily close relationship.
One which has known dificult times,
family fractures, romantic heartbreak,
and may now be tested in ways that
neither of them can quite calculate.
“Sure, everyone’s happy about things,”
says Meghan’s uncle, Joe Johnson, a
68-year-old retired sign-painter, “but
let’s not pretend there won’t be
problems for Doria.”
The chilled, faintly bohemian world
that Doria inhabits could scarcely be
further removed from the one her
36-year-old actress daughter now
enters as wife of the sixth-in-line to
the British throne. Doria’s modest
home sits on a winding, palm-lined
stretch of LA’s busy Angeles Vista
Boulevard, in a socially-mixed district
of the sprawling Californian metropolis.
A random sampling of Doria’s
neighbours suggests that few have
even heard of Prince Harry, or can
muster very much interest in the
glittering nuptials.
“It’s always nice when two people
fall in love,” says Bernice Neely, who
lives a few doors along from Doria,
“but I didn’t know a thing about any
of this until all the news crews camealong. I think they’re good people.
Will this be on TV?”
“Harry’s the one with red hair, right?”
chuckled neighbour Sherrie Quinn. “It’s
great, but I don’t think it’s going to affect
people’s lives much around here.”
Before her engagement last
November, Meghan described her
mother in a social media post as:
“Dreadlocks. Nose ring. Yoga
instructor. Free spirit. Lover of potato
chips and lemon tarts. And if the DJ
cues Al Green’s soul classicCall Me,
just forget it. She will swivel her hips
into the sweetest little dance you’ve
ever seen, swaying her head and
snapping her ingers to the beat like
she’s been dancing since the womb.
And you will smile. You won’t be
able to help it. You will look at her
and you will feel joy. I’m talking
about my mom.”