Authors: Claudia Joseph
Kate (23 page)
Meanwhile Kate was struggling rather more to find her niche after university. Reports that she lived with Prince William, had dined with the Queen and was being groomed for life in the family were far wide of the mark. Although palace aides gave her some unofficial advice about dealing with the media, she was still afforded royal protection and VIP treatment only when she was on William’s arm. The rest of the time, she had to fend for herself, walking a precarious line between life as a royal and life on the outside.
While William was away, Kate flitted between her parents’ wisteria-clad home in Berkshire and their flat in Chelsea, southwest London, showing little sign of getting a full-time job. In fact, she was working behind the scenes trying to set up her own Internet company designing and selling children’s clothes, an idea eventually rejected as she found it too hard to get the business off the ground. However, that work left her plenty of spare time to go to the gym and go shopping, gradually earning her a reputation for being nothing but a princess in waiting.
It was during one of those shopping trips, with her mother Carole, that Kate first encountered a designer who would help bring her out of her shell. Until then, like most well-brought-up Home Counties girls, Kate favoured the wardrobe of the modern Sloane, wearing boot-cut jeans, cowboy boots, country tweeds, floral skirts and dresses, and kitten heels. But after she met Katherine Hooker, a former film-set designer whose clients include models Jerry Hall and her daughter Lizzie Jagger, at the Spirit of Christmas Fair in olympia, she underwent a subtle transformation. Although she did not become a fashion icon overnight, she began to look slightly more polished. ‘Kate saw my stand . . . and approached me,’ Katherine said later. ‘She has been in and out of the shop since then, sometimes with her mother and sometimes just on her own. She is very self-assured, very down-to-earth and normal.’
However, while Kate was in some ways growing more confident, she still had a long way to go. When she was photographed on a number 19 bus, ‘Waity Katy’, as she had been dubbed by the tabloid press, was immediately compared to a young Princess Diana going about her life in the capital before she married the Prince of Wales. But there were two significant differences: Diana worked as a kindergarten teacher before she was engaged, and she had a ring on her finger when she emerged into the public eye.
W
rapped up against the winter wind in a scarlet coat, Kate Middleton made her first official public appearance, attending Prince William’s passing-out parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Wearing a broad-brimmed black hat and matching boots, the 24-year-old smiled broadly as Second Lieutenant Wales paraded past her and received his commission as an officer, having completed his 44-week course.
Kate’s presence at the ceremony on 15 December 2006 marked a significant shift in the couple’s relationship since they had left university 18 months earlier. Although she was not sitting in the royal stand with William’s father, grandmother and other members of the family, her attendance at such an important event was deemed significant and fuelled speculation that an engagement was imminent. Indeed, the interest in Kate’s appearance at the parade was so feverish that ITN went so far as to hire a lip-reader, who reported that the prince’s girlfriend had commented afterwards, ‘I love the uniform. It’s so sexy.’
Kate, with her parents Michael and Carole, and the prince’s private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, was one of the last to take a seat in the public stands. The quartet sat in the front row, next to Thomas van Straubenzee and two of the prince’s godfathers, the exiled King Constantine of Greece and Norton Knatchbull, Baron Bradbourne. Clasping her hands in front of her, Kate then stood for the national anthem as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall took their places on the dais.
William’s platoon had achieved the coveted honour of being named Sovereign’s Platoon, entitling them to carry the Queen’s banner during the ceremony. They had come out on top after weeks of intense competition between the nine platoons in the intake, competing over the weeks in a range of activities including shooting to drill and a timed log race. The prince, who was escorting the Queen’s banner, and therefore carrying a rifle as opposed to a sword and wearing a red sash over his uniform, stood out from the sea of soldiers. Kate watched as the Queen and the academy’s commandant, Major General Peter Pearson, inspected the 233 cadets. Elizabeth stopped for a moment to greet her grandson, who was standing at the end of his platoon.
Afterwards the Queen told William and his fellow cadets: ‘I am speaking to every individual one of you when I say you are very special people. A great deal will be expected of you. You must be courageous yet selfless, leaders yet carers, confident yet considerate, and you must be all these things in some of the most challenging environments around the world so that men and women will willingly follow your lead into every possible situation with absolute trust in your judgement. These are very special attributes, but those whom you will command, and your country too, will expect nothing less.’
That night, at the stroke of midnight, as fireworks lit the sky and champagne corks popped, William took part in one final Sandhurst ritual, ripping off the tape covering the pips on his uniform. It was just days before Christmas and Second Lieutenant Wales had a bright future in front of him. Now the world wanted to know whether that future would include Kate.
The future commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces arrived at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to begin his training on 8 January 2006, the day before Kate’s 24th birthday, having bid his girlfriend a fond farewell the previous evening.
It was four days after the lovebirds had thrown their legendary caution to the wind and kissed in public for the first time, revealing how close they had become. That kiss proved to be a turning point in the public perception of the relationship. Before then, they were dogged by rumours that it was on the rocks, but afterwards speculation centred on when they would get married.
The two graduates saw in the New year in a cottage on the Sandringham estate before flying out the following day to Klosters. Conscious that they would soon be separated for the longest period since they had begun dating, they avoided the resort’s hotels, bars and restaurants, staying discreetly in a friend’s chalet and spending their time alone together. The public display of affection came during an off-guard moment on their third day, after they had spent the morning tackling the black runs. As they made their way off-piste down Casanna Alp, they stopped momentarily for a touching embrace.
The following day they flew home for William to prepare for his military cadetship. But Kate had a surprise in store for him: a farewell party. She had invited 40 of his closest friends to send the prince off in style, sipping champagne at the prince’s London apartment at Clarence House before going on to the Kilo Kitchen & Bar, a French bistro in Mayfair. There were only three days to go until William went to Sandhurst and the couple would be separated for five weeks.
Officer Cadet Wales was following in the royal family’s military tradition: in recent years, Prince Charles had been in the RAF and the Navy, while Prince Andrew saw active service as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands. William arrived at the academy with his father in the pouring rain and was greeted by Major General Andrew Ritchie, then commandant of Sandhurst. After enrolling, he emerged from the old College building wearing a red badge with his surname on it and waved goodbye to Prince Charles. The new cadet then joined his colleagues in his dormitory, unpacking his kit, which included a blue drill uniform, olive barrack uniform and physical training kit.
Founded in the wake of the Second World War, the elite military academy was set up to train regular army officers, replacing two outmoded establishments, the Royal Military College in Sandhurst and the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, both of which had trained gentlemen cadets. William joined a long list of illustrious recruits to the academy, including the late King Hussein of Jordan, the sultans of Brunei and oman, Prince Michael of Kent and Sir Winston Churchill, as well as his younger brother Harry, who was about to enter his third term at Sandhurst.
One of 270 cadets, including Alexander Perkins, great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, William spent the next five weeks sleeping in a small dormitory, sharing communal washing facilities and surviving what new recruits describe as ‘hell on earth’. Thirty-seven dropped out in the first year. Banned from leaving the base and allowed only limited use of the telephone, the cadets, who were expected to do their own laundry, iron their shirts and polish their black military boots, rose each day at dawn for a series of intensive drills and endless inspections. They were trained in handling weapons, initially SA80 5.56-mm rifles, later 51-mm light mortars, light support weapons and Browning 9-mm pistols.
Insisting that the second in line to the throne would not be granted any special privileges, Major General Ritchie said: ‘I can assure you that he will be treated the same as every other cadet. Everyone is judged on merit. There are no exceptions made. He will be up early tomorrow morning and will then get stuck into military training. The fitness regime and tactics will begin in earnest. They need to know what it’s like to be tired and to be hungry, to lead their soldiers in demanding situations around the world.’
Kate and William were reunited the weekend before Valentine’s Day, when they met up at Prince Charles’s Highgrove estate, but unfortunately their romantic getaway was spoiled by a drugs scandal at one of their regular haunts.
The young couple were drinking with William’s cousins Zara and Peter Phillips and the prince’s close friend Guy Pelly in the Tunnel House Inn, a rural pub nestled in the Cotswold village of Coates, when Pelly, a former student at Cirencester Agricultural College, was secretly filmed smoking cannabis. Pelly, who had previously been falsely accused of introducing Prince Harry to the drug, claimed he had been deliberately set up, having been passed what he thought was a cigarette by a pretty girl. There was no suggestion that either Kate or William had taken drugs, but questions were raised over the company they kept. They left Gloucestershire on Sunday evening, William returning to Sandhurst for kit inspection the following day, and Kate going back to the sanctuary of her parents’ home.
A month later, on 17 March, Kate showed just how serious their relationship had grown when she turned up at the Cheltenham Gold Cup for one of the highlights of the racing calendar without Prince William, who was confined to barracks at Sandhurst. Wearing a Katherine Hooker coat, controversially accessorised with a mink hat, she was slowly beginning to look like a royal princess. After spending the morning wandering around the paddock looking at the form of the racehorses, she joined Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall for a family lunch in the royal box.
It was the first time Kate had appeared in public with the couple who are to become her in-laws without the comforting presence of her soldier boyfriend, yet she looked totally at ease in their company. After lunch, she joined Camilla’s children, Tom, with his wife Sara, and Laura, with her fiancé Harry Lopes, as they watched the afternoon’s racing and saw their mother presenting the Gold Cup for the first time to the winner, War of Attrition, ridden by Conor o’Dwyer.
The outing was a spectacular PR coup for Kate, who hadn’t been invited to the races by the royal family but had turned up independently. After being hounded by photographers, however, she was invited into the royal box.
The following day, Kate caught up with William at Eton College after he took a weekend’s leave to play in an old boys’ Eton Field Game match (the sport is a cross between rugby and football) at his former school. She and a friend turned up at the ground to watch the match, and the prince’s girlfriend casually strolled up to embrace him, in full view of all the spectators. After giving him a kiss, Kate playfully ruffled his thinning hair, a sore point with the prince, who had managed to hide his bald patch under a long, floppy style until he had been forced to crop it at Sandhurst. William did not seem to have any objection to his girlfriend showing affection towards him in public, and within a month the couple would be on holiday together on the Caribbean island of Mustique, sparking speculation that they would soon get engaged.
After three months’ training, Prince William began his Easter holidays on 12 April, the day his younger brother Harry passed out from Sandhurst as a fully fledged officer, meaning that the future king would have to salute his younger brother in public for the next eight months, until he himself graduated.
That night, the brothers enjoyed a double celebration, but it was William who was reportedly the party animal, not his younger brother. While Harry spent the evening with Chelsy, who had flown over from South Africa for her first royal engagement, William was unable to invite Kate to the party, as he himself was a guest, not the host.
Instead he was reported to have got ‘merry’ at the bar, swearing and being rowdy, before retiring early to his barracks, where he spent the remainder of the evening drinking. The following night, he was reunited with his girlfriend at Boujis, where the royal party ran up an estimated £2,500 bill, raising concerns about what some saw as their excessive partying.
However, two weeks later, William was on his best behaviour, flying out to Mustique to join his girlfriend for a week’s holiday, sparking the inevitable rumours that he was on the verge of popping the question. The tiny 1,400-acre island on the northern tip of the Grenadines, 18 miles south of St Vincent, has been a favourite royal hideaway since Princess Margaret first travelled to the island during the ’60s. Colin Tennant, now Lord Glenconner, had given her a plot of land on her marriage to Lord Snowdon. Margaret commissioned the legendary theatrical designer oliver Messel to create a lavish villa, Les Jolies Eaux. It was there that the princess had a notorious affair with garden designer Roddy Llewellyn, who was 17 years younger than her, and it is there that her son Viscount Linley proposed to Serena Stanhope. Since the ’60s, the island has become a playground for the seriously rich and famous; rock legends Mick Jagger and David Bowie both have homes there, and Noel Gallagher and Kate Moss are regulars at its legendary nightspot Basil’s Bar.