KATE Middleton has joked she will buy her husband Prince William a Spiderman suit after chatting with a martial arts teacher who dressed as a superhero to cheer up local kids during the pandemic.
The Duchess of Cambridge praised Jason Baird for his efforts to entertain children in his neighbourhood while they stayed inside at the height of Covid.
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Jason became known as the “Stockport Spiderman” after dressing up as the iconic character and doing flips along the street for kids to watch from their window.
And Kate Middleton, a mum-of-three, was so taken by the idea, she joked Prince William might be interested in donning a superhero outfit.
Speaking on the phone with Jason, she teased: “I’ll see if it takes on the trend to Kensington Palace. I might have to buy William a suit.
“Unfortunately, I’m not so sure he’s going to get the air clearance that you’ve got!”
Kate was speaking to Jason as part of her Hold Still photo book, which aimed to collate photographs that captured the spirit of Brits as they united to get through the pandemic.
She selected a photo of Jason on one of his Spiderman jogs as part of her curation for a new book by the National Portrait Gallery, Hold Still: A Portrait of Our Nation in 2020.
In the photo Jason does a backflip in the street, as kids look on mesmerised pressed up against windows.
“When we heard the news that we were only allowed for an hour a day, exercise and activities whether it was a walk or a run, it was a more a case of we wanted to try and cheer the kids up,” he recounted to Kate on the phone last autumn.
“I’ve got two children myself, a five-year-old and a one-year-old and obviously they can’t go out and they can’t see their friends and all that type of stuff.”
“So it was a case of just trying to bring a few smiles. We went of the first runs, first jogs and then literally from that day one, we had all the children in the area, they were playing Spiderman out the window.
“They were dressing up as Spiderman. They had signs in the window. ‘Spiderman stop outside my house!’ And stuff.”
Jason calculated he must have ran over 420 miles during the first lockdown and armed up a team of 50 joining in on the jog.
“We had the likes of Snow White, Wonder Woman, Batman – we created a team. Just bringing the joy and the happiness was the main thing. I called it social-distancing smiles.”
“I am going to put the suit on again and do another big run at some point.”
Jason started practicing marital arts age 5, and earnt his first black belt at age 10.
Twelve months later he won his first world title and gained his second and third degree black belt.
This was swiftly followed by many more world titles, all before turning 17 and at which age he also opened his own gym.
Now, he has been teaching martial arts to years and has taught “thousands and thousands” of people in his community.
