Authors: Katie Nicholl
They were treading in famous footsteps: the Queen had visited Canada the year before, and although the republican debate bubbled constantly below the surface, the popularity of the royal visits was living proof that the majority of Canadians still wanted the Queen as their head of state. When
William and Kate traveled to Calgary to open the annual rodeo, they were greeted like rock stars. Decked out in white Smithbilt cowboy hats, jeans, and cowboy boots, they looked like fresh-faced celebrities. Kate's grandfather, Peter, had trained as an RAF pilot in Alberta during World War II, so she had been particularly anxious to visit.
At the end of the tour, as they boarded the steps of the Canadian Air Force jet bound for Los Angeles, they were waved off by Prime Minster Stephen Harper. “We haven't seen a love-in like that since the first visit of the Beatles,” he told them with a smile. “Everywhere you went, you left a trail of utterly charmed Canadians in your wake.”
A similar “love-in” greeted them in Los Angeles. At a charity polo match in Santa Barbara, wealthy guests paid up to $4,000 to lunch with the royal couple. Their appeal was universal, and at a British Academy of Film and Television Arts dinner in downtown LA to celebrate upcoming British talent in the film industry, they dazzled and charmed some of the town's most influential people. They chatted with Tom Hanks and Jennifer Lopez, shook hands with film director Quentin Tarantino, and enjoyed their time with movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the actress Nicole Kidman. “Will and Kate Conquer America” was the headline on a commemorative issue of
People
magazine, which crowned them America's new king and queen.
Back at home, aides briefed the Palace that the tour had been a resounding success. Kate, who was only eleven weeks into her royal tenure, had proved a flawless and priceless ambassador for Great Britain. The Queen wrote to William and Kate to congratulate them, while the British press labeled “Team Cambridge” a triumphant success. When Charles and
Diana had visited Canada after their wedding, Diana had been the real star, eclipsing her husband and, in doing so, badly wounding his ego and denting his pride. Kate and William had been equals, and when the crowd chanted for Kate, William had proudly ushered her in their direction. There was no jealousy on his partâinstead, he was delighted that Kate was such a natural.
The press decided the moniker “Waity Katie” no longer applied, rechristening her “Stately Kate.” The transition in the young prince was also noted. When William had visited Canada as a shy teenager, he had hated being the center of attention, and even as a student prince, he had resented the media attention to his life. With Kate at his side, he seemed content, more accommodating of the cameras and ready to embrace his destiny.
Back in Anglesey, William and Kate eased back into married life. William had instructed his aides to keep their diaries clear of official engagements, as he was desperate to get back in the cockpit. Kate had let slip during one walkabout in Canada that she worried every time her husband went off on a rescue mission, but she accepted that it was part of his job and her role as an army wife was to support her husband. Although she loved the peace and quiet of their life in Anglesey, she was sometimes lonely when William was on shift and was often left without enough to do.
Fortunately there was a new project to occupy her: William and Kate had been given a new London home at Kensington Palace by the Queen. The two-bedroom house, known as Nottingham Cottage, which was situated within the Palace compound, was billed as a “starter home” so that they could move out of Clarence House and have their own London base.
They had been to visit Kensington Palace at the start of the year before their wedding, when the Queen had offered them a number of options, including suites at St. James's Palace and Buckingham Palace as a London residence. Both William and Kate loved KP, as Diana used to refer to the royal residence. William had suggested living in Apartments 8 and 9, his childhood home, which evoked many happy memories of learning to ride his bike in the courtyard, but according to a friend, Kate had found the idea “creepy” and far preferred the late Princess Margaret's Apartment 1A, which was being used as office space and the headquarters for the Prince of Wales's drawing school. The three-story property, with its forty rooms and walled garden, would, she suggested, make a fabulous London family home. It was in need of extensive renovation, and so it was agreed that the couple would live at Nottingham Cottage until the renovation was complete, with plans to move in sometime in 2013.
Situated next to Wren House, the former residence of the Queen's cousin, the Duke of Kent, Nottingham Cottage has a pretty front garden. Kate had revealed in Canada when she planted the ceremonial tree that she is an avid gardener, and as well as planting some bulbs, she also started on a small refurbishment and had the house painted. With the help of British interior designer Kelly Hoppen, who helped her choose fabric swatches and soft furnishings, Kate soon made the house their home. With just two bedrooms, a living room, a very small dining room, and a kitchen, it was small but delightful. It suited them well, and on weekends, when they were in London to catch up with family and friends, Kate would have her hairdresser or beautician come to the house: “It was more private and relaxed. She would be having treatments,
while William was making tea and toast in the kitchen. It was all very relaxed,” recalled one regular visitor.
Most of their time was spent in Anglesey, where their lives were simple and low key. While William was working, Kate began looking into the charities and organizations that she was interested in working with, and she started researching on the Internet. Hundreds of organizations had written to the Palace, desperate to have her patronage, and she was eager to find out more about some of them. Until now, she had only worked with Starlight and intended to develop her philanthropic role. She also took great pleasure in overseeing the running of their Anglesey home. They had a house cleaner but no other staff. It was William's job to put the trash out, with Kate in charge of keeping the pantry stocked and cooking meals. She had started making jam and was seen stocking up on canning jars at the local hardware shop. She also loved hill walking in the countryside and continued to take photographs of the coastline and the dramatic mountains. In the evenings, she cooked, and they loved staying in and watching a selection of DVDs, such as
The Killing
, in marathon sessions. Sometimes they ordered pizza for delivery, and they often drank at the nearby White Eagle pub. Occasionally they went to the cinema, sneaking in unrecognized in baseball caps with a large bucket of popcorn to share. It was the ordinariness that William thrived on, and they loved the fact that they were never spied on. “People around here have taken them to their hearts. You won't catch anyone tweeting gossip about them as they go about their day-to-day business,” said Jack Abbott, chairman of the local Trearddur Bay lifeboat station, part of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which the couple had visited earlier that year.
William wanted to make the most of this newly wedded bliss, confiding to friends that he was living on “borrowed time.” He knew that at some point, he would be expected to take on more royal duties and that they would have to move back to London. That June, his grandfather, Prince Philip, had turned ninety and announced that he planned to scale back his official engagements. He had suffered a number of bouts of ill health and acknowledged it was time to slow down. “I reckon I've done my bit,” he said with characteristic understatement. The Queen was in full agreement, and William knew that alongside his father and Harry, whom the Queen called her “substitutes,” he would be expected to do more. The Queen had given William her blessing for the couple to enjoy two years of married life in Anglesey without the pressure of full-time royal duties. It meant that William could complete a full tour of duty with the RAF while Kate settled into royal life at her own pace. Back in 1947, the Queen had enjoyed two carefree years in Malta after her wedding while Philip was serving with the Royal Navy, and they were some of the happiest times of her life. Granting the couple some time out of the limelight was her way of helping Kate with the transition. There was also the matter of starting a family, something both William and Kate were eager to do.
Traditionally, royal brides conceive within months of getting married. The Queen was pregnant with Charles three months after her wedding, and Diana became pregnant two months after her wedding day. William and Kate had been married for three months and were in no hurry. Secretly, they hoped it would happen relatively quickly in the peace and solitude of their Welsh home. Kate had confided to her best friends that she was “desperate” to become a mother, and the
press were on constant “baby-bump” watch. This royal bride, however, appeared to be getting thinner. When the couple attended William's cousin Zara Philips's wedding in Scotland at the end of July, Kate appeared to have lost even more weight since her wedding, prompting some concern among her family and friends, and her weight loss was noted by the ever-watchful media.
Like many brides, Kate had dropped a dress size ahead of her big day, but she had not put any of the weight back on since. During their trip to Canada and the States, she looked exceptionally thin, even when standing next to some of Hollywood's famously slender stars. Her busy travel itinerary on tour had meant they sometimes skipped meals, and Kate often nibbled on muesli bars to keep her energy levels up. She was reported to have dropped down to a UK dress size six, also known as “size zero” in America, where, among celebrities, it was something of a trend. Kate had always had a healthy, athletic figure, but these days she was a slip of her former self. Diana had developed an eating disorder within the first year of her marriage, such was the stress of her new role, and courtiers were anxious to make sure Kate stayed healthy and well. Her aides insisted her slim frame was due to her exercise regimen and healthy eating. When she was hailed as a role model for skinny women on a number of controversial pro-anorexia websites, however, she was upset and determined to distance herself from the controversial sites. She took her position seriously and wanted to be a healthy role model for her many admirers. She also knew that if she wanted to get pregnant, she ought to put on a few pounds.
The summer of 2011 afforded William and Kate some time to relax, so at the end of August, they traveled to Scotland to
spend the bank holiday at Balmoral. The Queen was delighted to hear that Kate had spent some of her time drawing up a short list of charities she wanted to work with. Together with Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton and Rebecca Deacon, another of Prince William's eleven-strong team of aides who had been assigned to assisting the duchess, Kate had been quietly visiting a number of charities and organizations. She had read up on the ones she was interested in. It was important to her, as it was to William, that she not be just an ornament; they both wanted to be actively involved with their charities, and Kate wanted to represent causes she was genuinely passionate about. One charity that caught her eye was The Art Room, a small British charity based in Oxford that uses art as therapy to help disadvantaged youngsters. Its director, Juli Beattie, had written to the Palace asking if Kate would consider working with them, and she was delighted when the duchess visited an inner-city school in Islington in North London to see the charity's work firsthand. Juli remembered, “Initially, her private secretaries came to visit The Art Room at the Robert Blair School, and then she came so that she could meet the children and see firsthand what The Art Room did. She was pleased to see that we were faithful to our mission statement and the work that we do with the children. She was genuinely interested in how we use art as therapy. We were delighted when she offered to become our royal patron.”
Kate was also eager to work with children's hospices, and having already seen firsthand how children benefited from the care available at Naomi House, she found out more about the East Anglia's Children's Hospices organization and made a private visit to the charity's hospice in Milton in Cambridge. According to the charity's chief executive, Graham Butland,
“We got a call from St. James's Palace saying the duchess was keen to see our work. They asked if she could visit our hospice in Cambridge so that she could come and see the children and meet some of the staff. We were told it had to be absolutely private and confidential and there could be no press. She drove herself to the hospice and spent an hour meeting the children. It was apparent from the beginning that she had a genuine interest in our work. She met some severely handicapped children, and she was fantastic with them.” Addiction, particularly in young people, was another area to which Kate wanted to lend her support, and she had researched the work of the small British charity Action on Addiction. The charity's chief executive, Nick Barton, remembered, “We didn't actually write to the Palace to request the duchess's patronage because we didn't think we would have a chance. We were stunned when her people came to us and said she was interested in our charity. When I went to meet Catherine, she told me she had spent a lot of time researching the problems young people face, and she said the subject of addiction seemed to be a big issue. That's how she found us. We are eternally grateful that she did.”
Kate also wanted to work with either a gallery or a museum. In September 2011, she visited the National Portrait Gallery in Central London. According to the director, Sandy Nairn, she spent the day learning about how the gallery operated and how major exhibitions were staged: “I got a call saying she was exploring and researching the charities she was interested in, and we were asked if we were happy for her to come and research and see us behind the scenes. She came at the end of the month and spent most of the day with us, which was great. She was interested in finding out how we organized exhibitions,
and we showed her what a working day was like. At the end of the day, she came into the galleries and into the public spaces to see the work.”