Kate (5 page)

Weekends and holidays were family oriented. Wanting the girls to be kept busy and make local friends, Carole enrolled Kate and Pippa in the first local St. Andrew's Brownie troop in Pangbourne. In their uniform of brown culottes and yellow sashes, the girls made their Brownie Guide Promise to be good and help others. With three fingers raised and a toadstool in
her left hand, a demure eight-year-old Kate pledged, “I promise that I will do my best to love my God, to serve the Queen and my country, to help other people and to keep the Brownie Guide Law.” Once she became a fully fledged member of the troop, she was determined to collect as many badges as she could. Kate had no problem getting her housekeeping badges; she knew how to brew a pot of tea and boil an egg. June Scutter, the troop leader, known as a “Brown Owl,” recalled Kate earning further badges for toy making and performing: “For the Jester badge, the girls had to get together and make a scene from whatever theme they were doing, and also make up a poem, to read aloud to the others.” Then there were the Brownies' adventure-packed excursions to local places such as Hog's Farm, where they could see the animals close up, as well as camping holidays at Macaroni Wood in the Cotswolds, where the girls enjoyed a summer vacation with the rest of the troop. Former Brownie Isobel Eeley, who went on a Brownie trip with the Middleton sisters, remembers the girls loving the long walks and arts and crafts activities. Isobel, a cerebral palsy sufferer, remembered how Kate was kind-natured and took Isobel under her wing, “She helped me if I ever got stuck doing things. I can only use one hand, so she would help me with anything that needed two hands.”

Back at school, Kate and Pippa were thriving. Avid musicians, they learned to play the flute and piano. They were such enthusiasts that they took extra piano lessons at home. Daniel Nicholls, who taught them, remembered Kate as a “really delightful person to teach. I don't think anyone would say she was going to be a concert pianist, but she was good at it. She always did everything she was told. I actually taught the whole family except Mike.” Along with playing instruments, the girls
loved to dance. Kate was especially good at tap and ballet. By the time she was in the prep school, she had made a circle of close friends in her year, among them Chelsie Finlay-Notman, Emily Bevan, who is still one of her best friends today, Zoe de Turbeville, Fiona Beacroft, and Katherine Nipperess.

There was no doubt that Kate was happiest on the playing field. She loved hockey and went on to become one of the best players in the under-thirteen team. Jill Acheson, who was known to the pupils as “Mrs. A,” had spotted Kate's ability at all things sporting and recognized her potential to become one of the school's star players. The sports and drama teacher was the first person to hand Kate a hockey stick, noting that she was a natural player.

Denise Allford, who also taught in the pre-prep before moving to the main school as a sports instructor, also recalled both girls' natural agility at sports. “Both Catherine and Pippa stood out at sport because they were so good. We had games every afternoon. In the summer they would play from 4:30 until 5:45
P.M
., and in the winter, it was after lunch and then lessons until about 5:30
P.M
. It was a long day, and by the end of the week they were shattered, but their work ethic was tremendous.” Kate was a member of the top hockey, netball, and tennis teams. The facilities at the school were excellent and included netball, tennis, and football courts, a hockey field, and an outdoor swimming pool. She was a fearsome swimmer, and her fast front crawl and backstroke enabled her to beat many of the school's records.

Kate was so happy at the school that when she was nine years old and about to start Year 5 (fourth grade) in fall of 1991, she told her parents she wanted to be a weekly boarder.
“After a while a lot of the pupils decided they wanted to board,” recalled Mrs. Allford's husband, Kevin Allford, who was Kate's class tutor from age eleven to thirteen and taught sports, French, and German. Although the eye-watering $4,000 per term was manageable, Carole and Michael knew that having Kate away during the week would mark a change in the family dynamics. The Middletons were an exceptionally close family, and Carole and Mike enjoyed the vibrancy of their children, the stories and noise and laughter. Every weeknight, they would eat a home-cooked supper together around the kitchen table. Mealtimes were an opportunity to bring the family together, and all three children were expected to help. One would lay the table, another would clear up, and they were not allowed to leave their seats until their plates were clean. “As children, we had to eat absolutely everything,” Pippa recalled about family suppers in an article she wrote about her childhood.

According to George Brown, who was often at West View for tea with her daughters, Carole was a formidable cook and could mix up and bake a perfect Victoria Sponge in minutes: “She was what I would call a real homemaker. She was also a great baker and taught the girls to bake. The kitchen was a traditional cottage kitchen and the hub of the house, and Carole was always busy cooking up something.” Certainly, the kitchen at West View had happy memories for all three siblings. Birthdays were always a special occasion and often themed. Kate recalled dressing up as a clown in giant dungarees, and playing musical statues, and how on her seventh birthday her mother made “an amazing white rabbit marshmallow cake.” One of James's earliest childhood memories is of dressing up in his favorite Red Indian outfit and of the pirate-themed parties
his mother used to organize, complete with water bombs and musical chairs. He said, “[I remember] my sister trying to make the cake and forgetting to add the self-raising flour! She ended up using the flat sponge to make a trifle cake instead. Boys don't like trifle when they should have had a pirate cake!”

When it came to holidays, the Middletons rarely went overseas. Weekends were spent walking and picnicking in the surrounding Berkshire countryside, and they would enjoy sailing holidays in Norfolk. Often, they rented a cottage for the school holidays in the Lake District. “The girls would talk about these wonderful holidays they had at the cottage with no water and no electricity,” recalled Denise Allford. “They never came back with suntans; they holidayed in the UK most of the time. It was typical of their very grounded life.”

By the time James was in pre-prep, Kate and Pippa were boarders, having won their parents over. The girls' boarding house was on the top floor of the newly built science block, and they lived with matron—a kindly woman named Margaret Hamilton. They settled in quickly, proud to be wearing their new uniform—a grey skirt and green sweater with the St. Andrew's tie in the winter and a green-and-white checked dress in the summer. The week worked by routine: Wednesdays and Saturdays were sports match days; hair washing was on Thursday evenings; the school day started at 9:00
A.M
. after assembly and ended at 6:00
P.M
.; every afternoon at 4:00
P.M
. the boarders had tea on the lawns, unless it was raining. This was one of the highlights of Kate's week—the kitchen staff wheeled out trolleys piled high with homemade Marmite and peanut butter sandwiches, buns, and doughnuts. With such intense physical activity during the school week, Kate was burning so many calories that she had lost weight. Carole was concerned
enough to pay a visit to the school. “Carole was very worried that Catherine wasn't having enough to eat. She was so thin, her school dress was hanging off her,” recalled Mrs. Allford. “Carole came at least once to see Yvonne Blay, the school secretary, to ask her if Kate could be given seconds if they were available because she needed to eat more. Catherine was always tall and slim; she had a fast metabolism and was always tearing around the place. She would often come to see us in the two-bedroom flat we lived in at the school, particularly after our daughter Angharad was born. She and Pippa and their friends Thierry Kelaart and Joanna Hodge would come for toast and hot chocolate and to play with Angharad in the Wendy House. We tried to feed Catherine up, and the girls were allowed midnight feasts usually on Wednesdays, which were more relaxed because it was match day. They were allowed to change into their home clothes and buy some treats from the Tuc shop, which I organized. Catherine had braces at that time so couldn't have anything too sticky—I remember she loved penny sweets and chocolate.”

On Saturdays, Michael and Carole would pick Kate up, and often her friends were invited to stay the night. According to Kate's good friend Fiona Beacroft, they would enjoy Saturday nights watching the TV show
Gladiator
and the movie
Cocktail
with Tom Cruise, which was Kate's favorite film: “We stayed at each other's houses many times. I remember camping in the backyard with Catherine and Pippa many times. The family are lovely people, very sociable and the house was always filled with laughter.”

Being a boarder meant that during the week Kate could play sports as much as she wanted after school. Often once supper was over, she would head to the netball court with
some friends for a practice game—taking up her position of goal defense—or to the tennis court for a knock-around with Pippa. But though she was a good all-rounder and fiercely competitive—“putting a lot of pressure on herself,” according to Mrs. Allford—Kate did not always emerge triumphant. In Year 8 (seventh grade), when she was thirteen, she lost out on being “head girl,” one of the most sought-after positions in her class year, to her friend Chelsie Finlay-Notman. The staff and pupils voted on their first choice, and it was Chelsie who emerged with the honor. Although Kate was successful, she was shy and introverted compared to some of the other pupils; Chelsie was more outgoing. Mrs. Allford remembered that Kate was “disappointed but she never showed it. It was a big deal, but Catherine was having so much success in sports it didn't matter. I think part of her wanted it but she cared about games more. There was always a competition between Chelsie and Catherine. When I was choosing the under-thirteen netball captain, it was between the two of them once again. In the end I made them joint captains.”

Kate also had to contend with her sister doing better both in the classroom and on the playing field. While Kate had to put the hours in, Pippa, who was known at St. Andrew's as “Perfect Pip”—a sobriquet that would stick—was a natural at anything she tried. Many older siblings would have been jealous, but Kate was only ever happy for her younger sister. “They had such drive and were very competitive, particularly Pippa, but never against each other, they were very much a team,” recalled Mrs. Allford. “Pippa was one of the youngest in her year and very bright and good at everything. I remember she wanted to be a professional sportswoman. She was such a good tennis player, she partnered up with Jim Boyd in
the pupil-teacher end-of-term tennis championship. She was more athletic than Catherine, and more of a team games girl. She was the best in the school at rounders. I used to bowl five balls and Pippa would hit every one, and she could place the ball. She was amazing, and she was academically bright.”

With their daughters in nearly every play, sports match, and concert, Carole and Michael became a regular fixture at the school. “You looked forward to seeing Mike and Carole,” said Mrs. Allford. “They were at the school every Wednesday and Saturday for matches. They would turn up in their Discovery, and Carole was always very well turned out, stylish and slim. You got the impression life wasn't as serious for Mike—he would always make a joke. He brought some balance to the family, I think. Carole was in charge of negotiating the children's education; as parents they were a great team.”

Carole enjoyed being involved with the school and joined a staff and parents' netball team that Mrs. Acheson and Mrs. Allford had started. Match nights were on Wednesdays in Newbury, and according to Mrs. Allford, Carole was an impressive goal attack. “She loved it. We used to train on Saturday morning, and Carole would come in early to the school and practice shooting. On a Wednesday night, we'd go to someone's house for a team dinner. Carole didn't keep it up for long because the business started to get busy. She gave up after a season.”

At the end of the term, when the teachers wanted to give small presents to their class, Carole would help, and Mrs. Allford recalled her generously bringing leftover Party Pieces stock for the children: “She was very involved. I remember we put a pool table in the boys' quarters and made it into a common room, and Carole called up and said it wasn't fair that
the boys had a common room and not the girls. The rules were changed, and we allowed the girls to go and use the common room until the youngest boarders had to go to bed. It was a very British compromise, all down to Carole. I don't remember Catherine or Pippa playing pool, though, but that wasn't the point; for Carole it was all about the principle. She wanted the best for her girls.”

Carole and Michael's hands-on parenting paid off, and Kate and Pippa proved to be model pupils. “[Catherine] was a perfectionist and took great care over everything,” said Mr. Allford. “She worked hard to keep up in lessons, and endeavor, diligence, and concentration got her through. She was meticulous about everything, and her handwriting was beautiful. Her reports were all first class, and parents' nights were a joy. They were great girls and in the classroom at 8:00
A.M
. tidying up before classes. Catherine was tremendous fun. I remember she loved the TV show
Absolutely Fabulous
, and she was a great mimic. She used to do an impression of Joanna Lumley, and would always joke to her friends when she thought the teacher wasn't listening: ‘That's absolutely fabulous, darling!'”