Isolated Thomas Markle is struggling for life as Meghan and Harry ghost him and

JUST one week ago I spoke to Thomas Markle, now fighting for his life in a California hospital. “I’ve just fallen,” he told me, from a pavement in Rosarito, his Mexican home. “Thankfully, some good people picked me up. I’m going to head home.”

During our friendly conversation, Markle, 77, spoke with unusual excitement about flying from San Diego to London for the jubilee celebrations.

5

5

“I’m coming to see the Queen,” he said with some pride. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” Naturally, I did not disabuse of him about his fantasy of drinking a cup of tea with the monarch at Windsor.

More realistically, I mentioned he would be in the same city as his daughter and grandchildren.

Thomas has not spoken to Meghan since 16 May 2018, just three days before her glittering wedding. Since then, he has effectively been ghosted by both Meghan and Prince Harry.

Equally painful for Thomas is the fact he has not met his two grandchildren.

The scenario of Thomas Markle being filmed by TV cameras standing outside Windsor Castle or near Buckingham Palace while Meghan, Harry and their children were just yards away was tantalising.

No TV station or newspaper across the world would have resisted the sight of a forlorn father trying to meet his daughter, a royal Duchess.

Especially because a TV company had agreed to pay for Thomas’s trip and had raised his hope of meeting the Queen and Meghan.

‘I’VE GOT AT BEST THREE YEARS TO LIVE’

The Markle family feud threatened to disrupt the Jubilee celebrations.

Now, with Thomas stuck in a Californian hospital, the Royal Family can certainly breath a sigh of relief. A major embarrassment has been avoided.

That is no comfort to Thomas Markle. Unable to speak because of a suspected stroke, he faces the prospect of living with permanent damage.

His life, already tough in an unattractive seashore bungalow in Mexico, is even more difficult.

“I’ve got at best three years to live,” he told me recently. “Markle men never live beyond 80.”

In a last ditch bid for reconciliation, he was desperate to fly to London this week.

But that of course begs the question. Meghan’s Montecito home is just over a four-hour drive to Thomas’ Mexican home. Now, her drive to the Californian hospital would take less time — just three hours.

The question is whether Meghan, who promotes herself as the champion of compassion, will bury her hatchet and dash to her father’s bedside.

“I love Bean,” Thomas told me when we first met, using the nickname he started using soon after Meghan’s birth. “Whatever she has done to me, don’t forget, she’s still my daughter.”

Fate, for Thomas, an award-winning former Hollywood lighting director, has an unfortunate way of repeating itself.

Emergency heart surgery prevented him flying to London to give his daughter away at her wedding in 2018.

Possibly, his health troubles were provoked by the pressure of the wedding itself.

But more likely he succumbed to the horror of the media’s exposure that he had secretly collaborated with a British photographer to stage snaps of himself preparing for his historic trip to London.

When his collaboration was exposed, Thomas denied the truth to Meghan. Once his lie was revealed, he repeatedly apologised to his daughter.

The last text messages between the daughter and her father in hospital seemed to suggest that Meghan accepted his sorrow. But just on the eve of her wedding, Meghan snapped.

Lying in the same hospital bed after surgery as now, Thomas suspected that in 2018 Harry and Meghan had not believed that he was really ill.

He believed they suspected he had staged his illness to avoid coming to Britain.

Meghan’s Montecito home is just over a four-hour drive to Thomas’ Mexican home. Now, her drive to the Californian hospital would take less time — just three hours. The question is whether Meghan, who promotes herself as the champion of compassion, will bury her hatchet and dash to her father’s bedside.

Their last telephone call ended acrimoniously. Hearing Meghan cry, Thomas had snapped: “Maybe it would be better for you guys if I was dead.”

In front of the world, and the Royal Family, Meghan cringed with embarrassment.

To show his illness was genuine, Thomas gave me his hospital records to prove why he could not fly to London for the wedding. But he also talked about his fury neither Harry nor Meghan asked about his health. “They didn’t seem to care,” he told me.

Then, over the following days and weeks after he left hospital, Thomas gradually came to a life-shattering conclusion. He believed Meghan was brutally spurning the man who had lovingly cared for…