Kate

by Claudia Joseph

  William and Kate, with Guy Pelly, turned up at the club in the early hours of Monday, 28 June, two days after leaving their graduation ball, and headed straight onto the tiny dance floor beside the neon-orange bar. With typical discretion, they left separately a couple of hours later, Kate disappearing first in a waiting BMW before William and Guy emerged.

  Within hours, Kate was back at home while the prince was heading to New Zealand with his recently appointed private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former SAS officer, and Thomas van Straubenzee. The trio arrived at Wellington Airport on a scheduled flight and were greeted by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

  William had first been to the South Pacific country with his parents when he was just nine months old and he was now there 22 years later on an official visit to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Representing the Queen, he met war veterans and laid two wreaths: at the National War Memorial in Wellington on 3 July and at the Cenotaph in Auckland a week later. He also spent time with the British Lions, who were on tour in the country, watching them lose to the All Blacks before flying out to Africa for his reunion with Kate.

  Kate Middleton returned from Africa facing one of the hardest challenges of her life: how to adjust to life outside the confines of university and create a role for herself while dating the heir to the throne. Whereas William had his life mapped out – although he did not like to admit it – Kate had nothing in her diary bar a few social engagements. Not only did she face the logistical nightmare of trying to find a suitable job for a princess in waiting, but she had to conduct herself with decorum outside the protection of ‘The Firm’.

  It was an extraordinarily difficult path for the 23-year-old to negotiate, one that her fellow graduates would never have to experience, but which she managed with typical aplomb. In keeping with her reputation for decorum, she spent most of her time sheltered in the bosom of her family, to whom she is very close. Her sister Pippa, who had just turned 21, was midway through her English degree at Edinburgh, and her brother James, 18, had just left Marlborough. She kept her head down, smiled for photographers and ignored the tittle-tattle implying that her relationship with the prince would never last the course.

  Such was Kate’s discretion while William was on the other side of the globe that she was rarely seen out and about, unless it was for everyday activities such as shopping in her local Waitrose or browsing with her mother in Peter Jones, the department store that has become a haven for Sloane Rangers and the Chelsea set. Her one trip out, to the Festival of British Eventing, sparked yet more speculation, this time about an imminent engagement, because the horse trials were held on Princess Anne’s country estate, Gatcombe Park. However, Kate’s appearance, in the Stetson she had worn on safari in Africa, could hardly be deemed especially significant, as the event was open to the public and was a favourite with her country set.

  Within a few weeks, she was reunited with William when he flew back from Kenya to take the gruelling selection test for the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, held at Westbury Barracks in Wiltshire. The 23-year-old prince passed both the physical and technical tests with flying colours.

  Then it was back to the social whirl. On 24 August 2005, the couple spent the evening at Purple, a cavernous nightclub with a sunken dance floor and two raised bars at either end, throbbing with house music. Although the club, which has since closed, did not have the exclusivity of Boujis, it had the distinct advantage for the royals of being hidden away in private grounds at Chelsea Football Club, a stumbling block for the paparazzi. William and Harry had first discovered the club in September 2003, when they went there for the birthday party of TV presenter Natalie Pinkham, the daughter of a millionaire Northamptonshire property developer. Photographs taken that evening would later cause a storm of criticism when, three years after the event, a national newspaper published one of Harry kissing Natalie, mistakenly suggesting that he had cheated on Chelsy Davy.

  In 2005, it was Kate and William who attracted some attention, although not quite the same level of controversy. They began their evening with friends at The Collection, a striking bar and restaurant housed in an old warehouse in Chelsea’s fashionable Brompton Triangle. The building had previously been home to a Porsche garage, a Conran furniture shop and a Katharine Hamnett boutique, and the restaurant was renowned for its entrance – an 80-ft catwalk, designed by the architect Sir Norman Foster – and its long bar. As well as hosting parties for the British Fashion Awards, the exclusive jeweller Cartier and the singers Beyoncé and Prince, it had become a favourite haunt for celebrities and royals.

  After having a few drinks – William stuck to red wine while Kate sipped margaritas – it was on to Purple, where the couple, for once, let their hair down. After spending some time in the VIP room, they took to the dance floor, where William drank sambuca, chatted with the DJ and requested a few tracks for his girlfriend, including ‘Shakedown’ by rapper DMX, dance hit ‘I Like the Way you Move’ by BodyRockers and Starsailor’s ‘Fall to the Floor’. The couple finally emerged at 1.30 a.m. looking slightly the worse for wear. But their carefree student behaviour could not last much longer.

  Over the next month, Kate put on a brave face as her boyfriend flitted all over the country, preparing for life as a working royal. His next public engagement, on 3 September, was with the Queen and Prince Philip at the Highland Games in Braemar, a quaint village in Aberdeenshire. William sat in the royal box, chatting with his grandparents as they watched a tug-of-war competition, Highland dancing and a veterans’ parade and listened to the pipes and drums of the 1st Battalion The Highlanders and the Gordon Highlanders Regimental Association. Meanwhile, in contrast, his girlfriend busied herself by going shopping on Kensington High Street, where she was spotted popping into Topshop and Miss Sixty.

  Four weeks later, on 30 September, William left Kate alone again to celebrate his friend oliver Hicks’ record-breaking solo voyage across the Atlantic at the Chain Locker pub in Falmouth. The old Harrovian, 23, had spent the previous 124 days out at sea in a 23-ft boat, travelling 4,040 miles from North America to the Isles of Scilly and becoming the first person to row solo eastwards across the Atlantic as well as the youngest person to complete a solo row across an ocean. ‘There was masses of scrummage on the pontoon when I rowed in,’ said oliver. ‘Richard Branson – one of my sponsors – shook my hand and sprayed me with champagne. Willy came along and pulled my hat down over my eyes and then they carried me off to the pub.’

  But, according to oliver, the only reason that Kate did not turn up with her prince was because William wanted to protect her from the scrum. ‘They are together,’ he told the press. ‘I spent the weekend with them. The reason they never confirm their relationship is because they don’t want to make it open season for people to ask questions.’

  Indeed, the following night Kate was at William’s side for a black-tie charity ball organised by the Institute of Cancer Research for 400 socialites at the Banqueting House in Whitehall. But yet again the couple faced a barrage of speculation, this time because they sat at separate tables for the £80-a-head event, despite the fact that at such a function this would be considered normal etiquette, not a sign of a disintegrating relationship. The prince was also criticised for ignoring Kate – only dancing with her once – and flirting with other girls, but in society circles it is deemed polite to work the room, albeit perhaps in a more thoughtful manner.

  In any case, their time together was short-lived. Three days later, William would start the first of three work-experience placements chosen to prepare him for his duties, and Kate would discover just how challenging and contradictory her own role as the girlfriend of a future king could be.

  William’s first job as a working royal began on 4 October 2005, when he arrived at Chatsworth, seat of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and one of Britain’s grandest stately homes. He spent the next two weeks in the Peak District learning how to run the 35,000-acre estate, even
working behind the scenes in its award-winning butcher’s shop. Wearing a traditional apron and straw boater, he joined the other backroom workers weighing the heavy cuts of meat. But he and his two police detectives lived in more luxurious surroundings than his fellow workers, staying in a sixteenth-century hunting tower overlooking Capability Brown’s stunning park. Originally built as a summer banqueting house from which ladies could watch their gentlemen hunting, the 400-ft turret with its narrow spiral staircase had been restored earlier that year to accommodate paying guests, although William was let off the £900-a-week rent. It was a plum first job for the prince, who has inherited his father’s love of the environment and has always harboured a desire to be a gentleman farmer. In the visitors’ book, which he signed ‘Will, Gloucestershire’, he wrote: ‘A wonderful place to stay but don’t try to tackle the stairs once you have a drink!’

  After discarding his green wellies, William donned a pinstriped suit for the next stage in his work experience, shadowing bankers at HSBC. He spent a week working with the bank’s Charities Investment Services team in St James’s Street, just around the corner from Clarence House, before commuting to its investment arm in Canary Wharf. He also spent some time at the Bank of England, learning how it sets interest rates, and visited the London Stock Exchange, Lloyd’s of London, the Financial Services Authority and the Queen’s lawyers, Farrer & Co.

  His final stint before Christmas was with the Royal Air Force Valley Mountain Rescue Team in Anglesey, North Wales, where he spent two weeks learning emergency lifesaving skills. He then took part in a mock rescue, abseiling down a 200-ft cliff while holding one end of a stretcher that had been filled with ballast to simulate an injured climber. But his trip was thrown into controversy, after he was flown from Anglesey to RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, on a 622mph Hawk jet to collect the army boots he wanted to break in for Sandhurst.

  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.

  Chapter 20

  A Look of Love

  Wrapped 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.