AS THE Duchess turns 40, royal expert Emily Andrews reveals how Kate has gone from timid outsider to the royal family’s secret weapon.
The Duchess of Cambridge had only given birth to Princess Charlotte a few months earlier when she, Prince William and Prince Harry hosted a small press reception at Kensington Palace in October 2015.
As the then-royal correspondent for The Celeb Report On Sunday, I’d been invited to have a drink with them, and noticed how Kate, like many mums re-entering the workplace, had adopted a new hairstyle.
By the way she kept self-consciously brushing her fringe back, it was obvious she was unsure of the new ’do, so I complimented her on it.
“Thank you!” she gulped, looking relieved. “Are you sure it suits me? You don’t think it looks too mumsy? I was a bit worried…”
That one of the most glamorous women in the world could be so endearingly unsure of herself surprised me. But there was more to come. As we were chatting, I asked how she felt about returning to work after just five months’ maternity leave.
She confided that, yes, she knew what a privileged position she enjoyed as a royal, but she still had the same “mum guilt” as many working mothers.
Did she spend too much time away from her babies? Was she letting them down by leaving them to go on tour? Had she returned to work too quickly? Was she getting the balance right?
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Her candour was a reminder that not so long ago, she was just a normal girl, from a normal – albeit comfortably middle class – family, who suffered from the same worries as the rest of us.
But this was a private side of Kate that she had hitherto kept hidden, and I never thought she would feel comfortable enough to share those thoughts and give more of herself in public.
Now, the mother of three is preparing to turn 40 next Sunday – a pivotal moment in any woman’s life, and even more of a turning point in her own journey towards becoming Queen Catherine.
With ever-increasing confidence in her royal role and seniority within the family, it’s apparent how much she has changed since that conversation we shared six years ago.
This growing ease and assurance has been plain to see on two key moments during the last year. First, as she stepped out of her car at the premiere of No Time To Die at London’s Royal Albert Hall last September, she didn’t just shine, she completely dazzled.
The nation’s golden girl looked every inch the Hollywood A-lister in a stunning Jenny Packham sequin dress and cape, complete with a chic updo and gold earrings.
Likewise, her diplomacy at Prince Philip’s funeral last April was instrumental in bridging a ceasefire between the warring brothers William and Harry in the wake of that bombshell
Oprah interview.
After the service at St George’s Chapel within Windsor Castle, Kate made a beeline for Harry, exchanging warm words of welcome. She then caught up with William,
who was walking back up to the castle, engaging both men in small talk before stepping back and allowing the brothers to speak for the first time.
The death of the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh had been a seismic blow – both for the Queen, who had lost her beloved husband of 73 years, and for the monarchy.
Here was a stark reminder that the golden age of Elizabeth II was drawing to a close. But Kate’s calm composure signalled that the future of the family is in the safest of hands.
It has not always been easy for her, navigating the choppy waters of royal life as she’s gone from partying student at St Andrews to our future queen.
In the early days of her relationship and subsequent marriage to William, Kate revealed little of herself and her opinions – a deliberate tactic to avoid controversy.
Back then, she was celebrated mostly as a style icon, with “the Kate effect” seeing clothes she has worn fly off the shelves.
Barbs such as “Waity Katie”, alluding to her lengthy wait for a marriage proposal from William, and “Doors to manual”, in reference to her mother’s former career as cabin crew, may have hurt, but she didn’t let it show.
Understanding that working for The Firm was part and parcel of her marriage, she has had to develop an inner steel – just remember the composure she showed while on tour in southeast Asia in 2012, after learning that French and Italian magazines were to publish pictures of her sunbathing topless and smoking a cigarette.
But there have also been moments of nerves at the enormity of the role she is taking on. An early speech at her new patronage, the National Portrait Gallery, in 2014 saw her stuttering and apologising over her closing lines at a glittering gala evening.
And on a tour to Australia with Prince George and William a couple of months later, she kept looking at her husband for reassurance during a heartfelt speech at a Sydney hospice.
But she persevered, and now she is making her voice heard through campaigning on mental health issues, her formative work on early childhood and addiction issues.
Building a secure and secluded family life at Anmer Hall in Norfolk with William, providing three gorgeous heirs to the British throne in George, eight, Charlotte, six, and Louis, three, has galvanised her.
Life completely revolves around the young Cambridges – from playing on the beach, riding and sailing in the Norfolk countryside to arranging their work and royal tours around school pick-up times in London so either William or Kate can do the school run themselves.
As one family friend told me: “All Catherine ever wanted was a house in the countryside, loads of kids, dogs and an AGA. She wasn’t interested in having a big job or becoming famous.
“Family life is incredibly important to her, and motherhood has been the making of her.
“Now that she feels she’s achieved that, there’s time to turn to her public role and what she wants to achieve there.”
May 2016 was the first of Kate’s big breakthroughs, with the launch of the Heads Together campaign to end the stigma around mental health.
Many mistakenly thought it had been conceived by Harry and William, who opened up about their own struggles following the death of their mother, but it was actually Kate’s idea.
She, along with sister Pippa, now 38, mum Carole, 66, and dad Michael, 72, helped her younger brother James, 34, deal with periods of depression, attending therapy sessions alongside him, and the campaign proved ground-breaking, opening up the conversation around mental health in a way no one had ever done before.
While the Queen has embodied the very English stiff upper lip throughout her long reign, the millennial queen-in-the-making has chosen a modern path – feelings are to be validated, mental health is to be prioritised and laughter is to be encouraged.
A further stepping stone was allowing the TV cameras to film her up close and personal with Dame Mary Berry for A Berry Royal Christmas in September 2019.
This was Kate as we’d never seen her before – joshing with William, rolling up her sleeves to bake and visiting charities close to their hearts. It was a revealing and relaxed portrait, as Kate talked about her children, her early years work and why her charities were so important.
Dame Mary, 86, was impressed: “She’s confident and she’s giggly and says: ‘I don’t think I can’, but she does,” she said. “I remember we were down at RHS Garden Wisley.
She was piping cupcakes and they were just… if not better than mine, they were beautiful – and she was laughing away and enjoying it. I think she’s a great person, she’ll have a go at anything.”
It also enabled Kate to give a little more of herself, allowing the public into her private space on her terms, by speaking to Dame Mary about how she makes every one of her children’s birthday cakes herself.
By 2020, the Duchess was confident enough to talk publicly about worries and issues she had only ever voiced privately before, particularly in relation to modern parenthood and her great passion – improving physical, emotional and cognitive development in early years children.
That February, she appeared on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, where she revealed how she and William had “totally underestimated” the impact of having George, how she “absolutely” suffered from mum guilt and that “anyone who doesn’t as a mother is actually lying.”
Kate realised that the chat would open her up to criticism at her entitlement – after all, what could she possibly have to complain about?
But she did it to help reduce the stigma around parenting struggles and to launch a nationwide survey, 5 Big Questions on the Under Fives, to shed light on the challenges faced by all families raising young children. More than half a million people responded, creating the UK’s biggest ever study on the topic.
“I think people assume that because I am a parent, that’s why I’ve taken an interest in the early years,” she said as she launched her Royal Foundation Centre For Early Childhood last June. “I think this really is bigger than that. This isn’t just about happy, healthy children. This is about the society I hope we could and can become.”
The ructions within the royal family in recent years have inevitably pushed Kate and William to the fore.
Harry and Meghan leaving as senior royals, and the “retiring” of Prince Andrew following allegations about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have led to a renewed focus on the Cambridges.
And along the way, she’s also managed to win over the Buckingham Palace courtiers, who’d feared that in the early days too many shopping trips and not enough charity visits wouldn’t play well with the public.
However, mindful of past history with royal brides such as Princess Diana and the Duchess of York, the Queen was happy to let William’s bride take her time.
Now, Kate and her grandmother-in-law enjoy a close relationship. Sporty Kate loves the great outdoors as much as the Queen does, and Her Majesty has bestowed both public and private recognitions of her favour.
She has invited the Middleton family to stay with her at Balmoral, in Royal Deeside, on several occasions. And on Kate and William’s eighth wedding anniversary in April 2019, she bestowed the highest chivalric order on the Duchess to thank her for her work, making her a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.
When the Queen visited Kate’s garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in May 2019, she smiled with delight and warmly congratulated her for all her hard work.
Just before Her Majesty arrived, Kate had given her garden a quick sweep for stray leaves and stuffed a dead branch into her handbag (which was swiftly handed to an aide) as there wasn’t a bin.
“It’s very tidy,” the Queen chuckled as she observed not a leaf was out of place.
The Duchess has also emerged as a palace peacemaker within the family, proving instrumental in helping to improve the often-strained relationship between William and his father – ensuring that Charles, 73, spends as much time as possible with his eldest son and grandchildren.
And she has kept communication lines open to California with Christmas and birthday presents for Harry and Meghan, including gorgeous clothes on the birth of their second child, Lilibet, in June last year.
The pandemic also put William and Kate centre stage. Video calls allowed us to virtually enter Anmer Hall, pictures were issued of little Louis charmingly painting rainbow pictures, while Charlotte and George dropped off care parcels to Norfolk neighbours and the entire family joined in the Clap For Carers in tribute to NHS workers.
“People love William and Kate,” said former royal press secretary Colleen Harris, “because we see them as ordinary people with fairy dust.”
Certainly, those video calls allowed Kate to show off her personality and sense of humour on a bigger scale than ever before.
In May 2020, she and William appeared via video link to play bingo with a dozen OAPs at the Shire Hall Care Home in Cardiff, and she showed off her mastery of bingo lingo.
“George would like this one,” she said, before announcing: “Five and five, snake’s alive.” Then, to the delight of the assembled seniors, she declared another: “Six and two, tickety-boo.”
Like parents around the world, Kate did all this while homeschooling George, Charlotte and Louis.
Asked during a virtual school visit last January to sum up parenting during the pandemic in one word, she replied: “Exhausting.”
Later that same month, while out running, she shared her first selfie video on Instagram to support her charity Place2Be’s annual Children’s Mental Health Week.
In it she encouraged other parents to make time for themselves: “This is a hugely challenging time for us all, so please look after yourself, too.”
Historian Robert Lacey says that Kate’s ability to be uncontentious is key to her success: “She is very cautious, and with good reason – she lets very few people in,” he says. “We never really know what she’s thinking – and so she can always be one of us.”
Now fabulous at 40, Kate seems a world away from that nervous young mum who often let her husband take the lead. Instead she’s coming into her own, forging her own path as Kate the Great.
