Kate (3 page)

According to members of the Harrison family, Dorothy was delighted that Carole had not only fallen in love but was marrying into money. On her wedding day, Carole had arrived at the church with her father in a horse-drawn carriage. She had four bridesmaids and wore a beautiful white gown, and she had asked her brother, Gary, who was fifteen at the time, to be an usher.

Unlike Ron and Dorothy's wedding reception at the local pub in 1953, Carole and Michael celebrated their wedding day in June 1980 in considerably more style with a sit-down luncheon at the exclusive Dorney Court, a Grade 1–listed Tudor manor house near Windsor in Berkshire. Unlike the Hambrough Tavern, which was on a busy main road, Dorney Court was set in the middle of the countryside with beautiful views of the surrounding fields and the River Thames. It was quite a step up from Southall. Guests were asked to wear dresses and lounge suits, and at the champagne reception, canapés were served from silver platters. Carole's brother, Gary, recalled, “It was a real departure for our family, and everything my mother could have wished for. It was natural, informal, and classy, but it wasn't pretentious or ostentatious.” The party continued after the reception at Michael's brother Simon's house for homemade chili, drinks, and dancing. Michael's family was close and welcoming—that was one of the things that had immediately drawn Carole to him.

Both Michael and Carole wanted a family of their own, and at twenty-five, Carole felt ready. Shortly before their wedding, they had begun house hunting in the nearby Royal County of Berkshire. Carole loved its picturesque villages—among them Bradfield, a sleepy rural hamlet surrounded by beautiful English countryside and offering a charming central green where there was an annual summer fete and, above all, a friendly community.

According to their friend Dudley Singleton, a real estate agent who has known the couple for more than thirty years, they immediately fell in love with West View, a pretty redbrick semidetached cottage on Cock Lane, a winding country way just a short distance from the village. The house had four bedrooms, a pretty country kitchen with an Aga range, and a sitting room and dining room, each with working fireplaces. It was exactly what they were looking for, and they were delighted when their offer was accepted, according to Mr. Singleton: “They moved to West View to start a family, and Bradfield is a pretty desirable spot to live. Theirs was a modest country cottage and they did some nice things to it. It was a very comfortable home with plenty of character. Carole made it very pretty. She has a lot of style and arranges things very nicely. It was intrinsically pretty, with lovely sash windows and open log fires in the two reception rooms. When they moved in, they didn't have oodles of money, but Carole made it look great. She has a great eye for color and fabrics. She was always a very stylish woman and very traditional.”

In the spring of 1981, Carole found out she was pregnant. The baby, due in early January, was to be Ron and Dorothy's first grandchild, and they were, as were Michael's parents, ecstatic. As her pregnancy progressed smoothly, the Middletons
enjoyed the summer, joining with the rest of the country in celebrating the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the shy and enchanting Lady Diana Spencer. Carole, who came from a family of “complete royalists,” according to her brother, and Michael were among the 750 million people worldwide who watched the wedding on their televisions. Diana, in her beautiful bridal gown with its twenty-five-foot-long train, was the epitome of a fairy-tale princess, and the wedding of the future King of England at St. Paul's Cathedral in Central London was a cause for celebration.

Now that she was expecting a baby, Carole decided it was the right time to leave British Airways. By a stroke of luck, the company was axing jobs at the time and she was offered a $7,000 redundancy package, enough money to put toward her planned loft conversion and kitchen expansion. George Brown remembered that the original kitchen was small, and Carole, who was an accomplished cook and an enthusiastic baker, was grateful for the extra space once the work was done. “Carole made the house a home. She had given up working as an air hostess, but Mike was still working at the airport and I remember by then he had had enough, he didn't like it much.”

With a baby on the way, a mortgage to pay off, and only one salary, Michael took his position as the only breadwinner very seriously. Although he came from a wealthy family, the major part of his inheritance was tied up in the family trust fund, which was intended for their future children's education. As soon as Kate was born, they were determined to provide their daughter with the best of everything. They purchased a brand-new Silver Cross baby carriage, just as Carole's mother had years before, and in the spring they started to plan a christening.
There were two churches in the village, but both Carole and Michael preferred the more traditional St. Andrew's Church of England in the old part of Bradfield, which overlooked the River Pang. Kate was christened on June 20, 1982, and Carole and Michael proudly posed for pictures outside the church in the summer sunshine, holding Kate, who was dressed in a full-length traditional christening gown. Although they weren't regular churchgoers, it was important to the Middletons that their daughter be baptized, and after the ceremony they hosted a party at West View. They had become friendly with their next-door neighbors David and Kirsty Phillpot. Mrs. Phillpot was the church treasurer and helped them organize the service. “The christening was a big occasion,” recalled George Brown. “Carole did all the catering herself, from the sandwiches to the cakes, which she baked, and I remember she had lots of chilled champagne. All the grandparents were there, and it was a very happy occasion.” The following day, June 21, Prince William was born, and thousands of people gathered outside Buckingham Palace to wait for the announcement to be displayed at the wrought-iron gates.

Within a year of Kate's birth, Carole was pregnant again, and on September 6, 1983, Philippa Charlotte Middleton was born at the same hospital as her older sister. The following March, “Pippa,” as she was known to the family, was also baptized at the local parish church. With a baby and a toddler to look after, Carole's hands were full. She filled her days taking Kate (who was known as Catherine until her university days) to play sessions at St. Peter's Church Hall in the village while Pippa slept in the same Silver Cross carriage that Kate had used when she was a baby. Carole loved village life, and in her
jeans and Wellingtons she fitted right in. She baked cakes for the village summer fete, got involved with the Christmas Nativity plays, and helped out with refreshments at the mother and toddler groups she attended with her daughters. It was completely different from her old life jet-setting around the world, but she loved motherhood and the relaxed pace of village life.

It was, therefore, with a degree of trepidation that in May 1984, four months after Kate's second birthday, the family packed up their belongings to leave for Jordan in the Middle East. Michael had been offered a transfer of two and one-half years to the capital, Amman. The salary was good, and although packing up their home would be an upheaval, the prospect of living somewhere else for a while appealed to both Michael and Carole, who both loved visiting new places. With Kate nearing nursery-school age, Carole and Michael had already started thinking about her education. Bradfield, the Church of England primary school that was next door to their home, seemed the obvious choice, but having spoken to some of the local mothers, Carole had heard excellent things about St. Andrew's Pre-Prep in the nearby village of Pangbourne. It was a fee-paying nursery school with an outstanding prep school attached, and although money was tight for the couple, they knew they had Michael's trust fund to go toward their children's education. Before they left for Jordan, they met with the headmaster, Robert Acheson, so that they could reserve a place for Kate. “I first met them in 1983 before they went abroad,” he recalled. “They had inquired about the school and I sent a prospectus out. They explained they were going away but wanted a place for when they returned. They wanted coeducational from the start. They are a lovely family—
very solid, and Carole and Michael were the sort of parents we wanted at the school; they were very supportive and trusted us to get on with the job.”

Life in Amman could not have been more different from Bradfield. The densely populated city, which is situated over seven hills, is one of the largest in the world. It was an exciting and exotic destination with a long summer season, hot but dry, and the additional attraction of plenty of places to visit, including ancient ruins and the Red Sea. Michael had flown out ahead of Carole and the girls to find a house to rent, and within a few weeks he put a deposit down on a villa in the upscale neighborhood of Um Uthaina in the western part of the city. Compared to their attractive redbrick semi, the two-story building was nothing grand, but there was an excellent nursery school nearby.

The property, fully furnished and air-conditioned, came with a small garden with a swing where Kate and Pippa could play. The neighbors, Intissar and Nicola Nijmeh, remembered the Middleton family as friendly and kind. “They were good people,” said Mr. Nijmeh. “I remember once when we were traveling to London and Michael saw us at the airport. He upgraded our tickets to first class.”

Michael was based at the airport and was in charge of four airplanes, a TriStar and three Boeing 757s, which flew direct from London to Amman four times a week. Hanna Hashweh, a sales agent for General British Airways who worked alongside Michael in Amman, said that he was popular and quickly earned the respect of his team. “I remember him well. He was distinguished and a man of integrity, and he stood out from all the other managers. He had a sharp personality. Michael used to deal with passengers, and as part of our business we
dealt with each other on a daily basis. As a director he was flexible, and the employees liked him.”

Because the inbound flights arrived overnight, Michael worked nights. While he caught up on his sleep during the daytime, Carole and the girls would meet some of their new friends and go out for walks in the surrounding countryside. As soon as they had moved in, they bought a patio furniture set with a sun umbrella and an inflatable paddling pool for the small garden. Carole loved to sunbathe and read while the girls had their afternoon naps, and when the afternoon had cooled off, they often enjoyed tea outside together. The weekends were family time. Eager to explore and get to know the country, they visited the tourist attractions, including Petra and Jerash, to see the famous Roman ruins.

A sociable couple, Michael and Carole wanted to make new friends and decided to join the British Club in the nearby Abdoun neighborhood, where they met fellow ex-pats and other employees at British Airways. An avid sportsman, Michael loved to keep fit and often played tennis. They had soon created a circle of friends, and because they enjoyed entertaining, they hosted regular garden and dinner parties at their home. Carole was known to cook splendid three-course meals, and sometimes there would be up to thirty friends gathered in their dining room. Kate, who was about to turn three, was allowed to stay up until dinner was served, a treat she always enjoyed. Mr. Hashweh was often invited: “They frequently threw dinner parties and invited me and my wife and our employees. We would be around seventeen couples and the food was homemade. Kate was little and she was like a butterfly. We used to see her at dinner parties. She accepted people and she was sociable.”

By her third birthday, Kate was enrolled in Assahera, a local nursery school just a short walk from their home and run by a local teacher, Sahera al-Nabulsi. It was brand new, built only two years before, and was the most expensive nursery for three- to five-year-olds in the district. Carole dropped Kate off in the mornings, and Michael would often collect her in the company car in the afternoon. “Her father used to pick her up in his work uniform, and the kids used to get excited and run to see him,” said Mrs. al-Nabulsi.

Kate had a multicultural start to her preschool life. There were children from all over the world, and though some of her new friends were British, she also mixed with Japanese, Indonesian, and American children and was taught by British and Jordanian teachers in Arabic and English. The children learned Arabic and listened to passages from the Koran. “The morning routine included having all the children sitting in a circle where they would all sing ‘Incy Wincy Spider' both in English and Arabic,” said Mrs. al-Nabulsi. “We would also read one short verse from the Koran to improve their Arabic and tell stories about the Prophet's companions, like Omar bin Khattab. The idea was to reinforce concepts such as respect and love. The teachers used to ask in Arabic, ‘who is wearing red today?' so that children then would recognize the colors.”

Each morning at 9:30
A.M
., Kate and her friends would have a traditional Jordanian breakfast of hummus, cheese, and
labneh
, a condensed yogurt similar to spreadable cheese, which was accompanied by olive oil and thyme and served on a fish-shaped plastic plate. “We taught them table manners,” said Mrs. al-Nabulsi. “Each of them would take a sandwich and then pass the plate to the other. They also had a snack of
apples, carrot sticks, and green peppers as well as crackers, salty sticks, and biscuits, known as Mary Biscuits.”

With an emphasis on play, the children were encouraged to use the designated sandbox and areas set aside for painting, and to Kate's delight there was a costume wardrobe. By the time she was four, she had already developed a feel for the stage and enjoyed the plays the nursery staged each term. Kate loved to dress up and took part in a fashion show in which the children dressed in different Arabic costumes that represented the Middle Eastern countries. There was a playhouse with small wooden toy beds, and according to Mrs. al-Nabulsi, another of Kate's favorite games was to pretend to have tea parties. She also loved to paint, and twice a month the nursery arranged visits to the local bird zoo and to the nearby markets, where the children held onto a beaded rope and walked in a line so they didn't get lost. At Christmas, the children were encouraged to dress up and act out scenes from the Nativity, and Mrs. al-Nabulsi dressed as Santa Claus. They also learned about Ramadan and other significant observations in the Islamic calendar.