When William and Kate speak about their respective childhoods, her innocent memories must seem a million miles from some of his painful recollections. His youth was blighted by the trauma of his parents’ marriage breakdown and the tragically premature death of his mother – all played out in the media spotlight.
Life began promisingly enough for Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Wales, the boy destined one day to become the 42nd monarch since William the Conqueror took the English throne in 1066. His birth at St Mary’s Hospital in London on 21 June 1982 was met with a 41-gun salute, the sounding of bells and rejoicing that reverberated around Britain and beyond. It came 11 months after Prince Charles, the Queen’s eldest son, had tied the knot with the then Lady Diana Spencer.
Their fairy-tale ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral was watched by a worldwide audience of 750 million people who were transfixed by the pomp and pageantry.
‘Diana made it her mission to give them a sense of fun, freedom and – most importantly – normality.’
William inherited his mother’s good looks, his father’s inquiring nature and – as the passing years would reveal – the House of Windsor hairline. Prince Harry was born just over two years after William, and the two were to become close friends and allies.
They were brought up in palatial surroundings, with nanny Barbara Barnes keeping a watchful eye over them in their early years.
Being a Prince certainly had many advantages over being a commoner. William once received a £60,000 scaled-down Jaguar car for his birthday, making Kate’s clown dungarees look rather small beer in comparison. On another occasion, he jokingly threatened a school rival with his grandmother’s soldiers during a row.
But as he got older, there was no hiding from the fact that his parents’ marriage was collapsing in front of his – and the nation’s – eyes. Whoever was to blame for the relationship’s failure – and everyone had an opinion – there was universal sympathy for William and Harry when Charles and Diana split in 1992. At an age when Kate was playing musical statues, William was caught in the middle of a brutal separation that infamously contributed to the Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’.
In spite of this, even Charles and Diana’s worst critics would concede that individually they had done their very best for their sons. Diana made it her mission to give them a sense of fun, freedom and – most importantly – normality. Charles was determined that they would not suffer the torment that he had endured at the tough Gordonstoun public school in Moray, Scotland. He also fought to shield William and Harry from the prying eyes of the newspapers and television cameras.
But nothing could prepare them for the shocking death of their mother in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel, Paris, on 31 August 1997. William was just 15 years old – and Harry only 12 – as they walked solemnly in her funeral procession from St James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey. It is a testament to both boys’ strength of character that such a heartbreaking ordeal did not send them spiralling out of control.
Diana would have been proud that her desire for her sons to be grounded shone from them even after she died. It was to prove a quality in William that a girl like Kate would find especially appealing.
Chapter 2 - A Schoolgirl Crush
Carole and Michael Middleton were utterly determined to give Kate, Pippa and James the best possible start in life. The burgeoning success of Party Pieces provided them with the necessary funds to invest in a private education for their children. From the age of 4 to 12, Kate was sent to St Andrew’s prep school in Pangbourne, Berkshire. This £10,000-a-year institution was just a few miles from the family home in Bucklebury, and, as far as her development was concerned, it wasn’t long before the hefty fees seemed to pay off.
She immersed herself in school life. Kate was one of the most popular and successful pupils at St Andrew’s. In the school magazine, The Chronicle, her achievements were splashed across most pages. She was a tennis champion and the captain of the rounders, netball, cross-country and swimming teams. The sports master showered her with praise when he wrote of her hockey skills:
She is a quick and talented player, although at times she can be erratic...
And in athletics, she held both the long and high jump school records. A former St Andrew’s pupil recalls:‘Kate was so sporty. In many ways she was a real tomboy and the teachers loved her.’
Her talents stretched beyond the sports field and into amateur dramatics. In 1993, The Chronicle records her appearance as a Junior Rat in a school production of Ratz. Later that year, she took the lead part of Eliza Doolittle in the classic My Fair Lady. According to The Chronicle of June 1994, Kate ‘glided about the stage looking stylish and serene’. It was not surprising that she was rewarded for all her work, winning that year’s prize for ‘all-round effort and pleasantness’. Her friend added: ‘She was a model pupil. In fact she was from a model family. Her parents were really supportive of all three children. They regularly got involved with the school and a lot of the girls even had a bit of a crush on Kate’s dad Michael. They were really down to earth, a normal happy family, and the stability undoubtedly rubbed off on Kate. She was very mature for her age and things just didn’t seem to bother her in the way that they did everyone else.’
Kate left St Andrew’s at 11 to attend Downe House in Newbury, where she spent two apparently unhappy years. She then transferred to the exclusive £26,000-a-year Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where she boarded in Elmhurst House.
In February 1998, a rumour bounced off the mixed public school’ s corridors the day before a hockey match. The excited chattering was loudest amongst the female students. ‘He’s coming here - he’s actually coming here,’ they shrieked. ‘And better still, he’ll be wearing shorts!’ By the time ‘he’ finally arrived, the banks around Marlborough’s hockey pitches were packed with pupils determined to catch their first glimpse of Prince William.
The young Prince had attended the pre-prep Wetherby School in Notting Hill, West London, followed by Ludgrove School in Wokingham, Berkshire. From there, he passed the entrance exams for the world-renowned Eton College - an achievement that delighted his father, who saw it as infinitely preferable to his old school, Gordonstoun. And it was the hockey team from Eton that was due to take on Marlborough for the annual inter-school fixture.
Former pupils at Marlborough are unlikely to remember the final score. But few of those who watched the game will ever forget the day they saw William up close. Yet not a single person crammed onto the rain-sodden sidelines realised what they were actually witnessing. That muddy match produced one of the most important moments in modern Royal history. Hidden amongst the hordes of admiring young girls was, of course, the 16-year-old Kate Middleton.
It was the first time William’s bride-to-be had clapped eyes on the man she would one day marry.
A fellow schoolmate recalled the air of anticipation surrounding the game. She said: ‘Like all of us Kate was excited. She wasn’t a shy girl at school but at the same time she was far more level-headed than most of her classmates. Several of them were almost hysterical about seeing Prince William in the flesh. Everyone wanted to catch his eye or, better still, get to talk to him. A few of the girls even put on make-up and made a special effort with their hair in the hope of making an impression. But Kate was above all that. As ever, she just played it cool and came with us to watch.’
‘She