Two babies born worlds apart: Doctor reveals how he delivered Meghan in a shabby Los Angeles hospital 37 years before yesterday's royal birth
- Meghan was born in West Park Hospital which was demolished 20 years ago
- Dr Malverse Martin delivered Meghan at 4.46am on August 4, 1981
- The doctor cannot remember Meghan's birth, having delivered 2,000 babies
- But he says he is 'honoured' to have delivered a duchess
West Park Hospital has gone now. It was demolished more than 20 years ago to make way for a row of houses as newly affluent couples moved into the Los Angeles suburb of Canoga Park.
But back in the early 1980s, when Thomas Markle, then a hotshot Hollywood lighting director, and his pretty new bride, Doria Ragland, moved into the area, its maternity unit was much in demand.
In those days, Dr Malverse Martin was a recently-qualified gynaecologist working at the hospital.
Meghan was born in West Park Hospital in Los Angeles 37 years ago, delivered by Dr Malverse Martin. She is pictured with her mother Doria Ragland hours after her birth
Today, he runs his private practice from a clinic on the opposite side of the road. Dr Martin, now 69, was the clinician the Markles came to see when Doria fell pregnant.
Husband and wife were certainly an incongruous pair: he a 35-year-old, balding, and slightly ungainly bear of a man of Caucasian stock; she a petite black woman, 12 years his junior, who wore flowers in her braided hair and flowing hippie clothes.
It was in the small hours of August 4, 1981, that Dr Martin was called to West Park's maternity wing where he delivered their baby – a strikingly gorgeous girl with shiny eyes and wispy curls.
Her birth certificate shows that he brought Rachel Meghan Markle into the world at 04.46 that morning.
This month, the Daily Mail became the first newspaper to track down Dr Martin. Of course, having overseen the birth of more than 20,000 babies, he cannot remember delivering Meghan – who arrived in rather different circumstances to those of the new royal baby.
But he was thrilled to learn his name was on the duchess's birth certificate.
Meghan was born without fanfare, in a rather drab room overlooking a thrumming freeway. It is unclear whether her father Thomas was there at the birth
From my extensive research into Meghan's background, however, I can well imagine how her earliest moments contrasted with those of her son and her husband Harry
Pick pleats like the Duchess of Sussex in Loyd/Ford
The Duchess of Sussex showcased countless chic outfits on her trip to Morocco back in March.
The royal picked pleats for this particular ensemble, choosing a spaghetti strap dress by in-the-know label, Loyd/Ford.
She teamed it with a recycled blazer from Babaton by Aritzia, before adding in the perfect finishing touches thanks to her 'Carolyne' pumps by Manolo Blahnik and earrings by GAS Bijoux.
If you're a fan of Meghan's style, the good news is a magenta version of her dress is still available to buy. Click (right) to snap it up, then team yours with flats on holiday, or trainers and a denim jacket for off-duty summer dressing.
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'This is something! I delivered a duchess. I'm honoured. It's very exciting,' he told us. 'Believe it or not, I saw her wedding [to Harry]. It was beautiful,' said Dr Martin, whose career suffered a blip in 2007, when he had his licence suspended for 30 days for failing to maintain proper medical records.
From my extensive research into Meghan's background, however, I can well imagine how her earliest moments contrasted with those of her son. No doubt Harry was at her side and there was a team of eminent experts on call.
Meghan was born without fanfare, in a rather drab room overlooking a thrumming freeway.
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By some accounts, her father was there at the birth. But others suggest relations between Thomas and Doria were already strained, although they weren't divorced until Meghan was six.
In any case, Doria's mother, Jeanette Ragland was with her when she went into labour at West Park Hospital.
A photo of Doria holding Meghan a few hours after the birth says much about the circumstances. Though the new mother is clearly overjoyed, something about her expression seems to betray her vulnerability, loneliness and exhaustion.
Dr Martin said he was 'honoured' to have delivered a duchess and watched Meghan and Harry's wedding last year
Moreover, she had little time to bond with her daughter, for within a few weeks she returned to work.
As Thomas also spent long hours in the TV studios, Meghan was often left in the care of her Granny Jeanette. Despite these fractured beginnings, however, she was such a delightful baby – both in looks and temperament – that she was doted on by everyone in her extended family.
Everyone, I should say, apart from her teenage half-sister, Samantha (then called Yvonne), who, according to several relatives I spoke to, was bitterly envious of Meghan from the outset.
In fairness, she had reason to be jealous.
The product of their father's first marriage, Samantha, 16, and her brother, Thomas Junior, 15, were then living with Thomas Senior and Doria, in Woodland Hills, a fashionable residential neighbourhood not far from the maternity hospital.
Until Meghan arrived, Samantha – a budding model and actress – had been the apple of her father's eye.
He showered her with attention, spent lavishly on her, and used his influence to help her gain her first modelling assignment, in a jeans commercial.
However, from the moment he brought her cute little half-sister home – to a bedroom filled with fluffy toys and decorated with colourful mobiles – Meghan became his clear favourite and Samantha felt frozen out.
As her half-brother, Thomas Junior, told me, this made for a constantly strained domestic atmosphere. It was exacerbated by his own bitter feuding with his sister, and the simmering friction between Samantha and her youthful step-mother.
One must wonder, too, whether Meghan's upbringing was affected by the use of recreational drugs by some members of her family.
Thomas Junior admitted to me that he and his friends smoked marijuana in the house, and says Samantha did likewise.
He also recalls how his father threw wild parties for his Hollywood friends, bringing baby Meghan down in her dressing gown to show her off.
Additionally, Thomas Senior has confessed to taking 'the occasional sniff' of cocaine when Meghan was little. Meghan's childhood was made yet more challenging by the undercurrent of racism that ran through the predominantly white, middle-class suburb where she spent her first few years.
The bigotry was so virulent that, when Doria took her months-old daughter out for walks in her pushchair, some neighbours 'mistakenly' supposed she was Meghan's black nursemaid.
And yet, despite all this turbulence, the little girl caught in the middle of it all appears to have emerged largely unscathed.
In fact, amid the discord Meghan unwittingly became a unifying figure, acting as a conduit between her warring parents, both of whom doted on her, and bringing factions together by her magnetic presence at family gatherings.
She has never bemoaned her difficult childhood. Rather, she depicts it as an idyllic time, when she and her father fished for trout in the wilds of California, and he helped stage her school stage productions.
And when her mother taught her to cook exotic dishes, went jogging with her around the neighbourhood streets, and took her to the poorest parts of Jamaica and Mexico to broaden her awareness.
A very different upbringing awaits Baby Sussex, of course, but it will surely be informed by his mother's early experiences in Los Angeles.
