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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Wills and Kate

Their very public appearance as a newly engaged couple was all but subsumed in a blaze of camera flashes and quickfire questions.

But a little earlier, in a quiet side room at Clarence House, William and Kate gave the first glimpses of the closeness of their relationship.

Seated side by side in their first interview together, the happy couple spent more than 15 minutes chatting informally to ITV News’ Tom Bradby.

well get over the wedding.jpg

The commercial channel’s political editor has become a close friend of the Prince, who chose him for the exclusive interview rather than the national broadcaster, the BBC.

Relaxed and often sharing a joke together, William and his bride-to-be revealed that they want to start a family.

And the Prince explained why he took so long to pop the question, saying he wanted to give Kate a chance to ‘back out’ if she felt she couldn’t cope with life as a future Queen.

Here is what the couple had to say:

THE ROMANCE

Bradby: When did you first set eyes on each other?

William: It’s a long time ago now, Tom, I’m trying to wrack my brain. We obviously met at university – at St Andrews, we were friends for over a year first and it just sort of blossomed. We just spent more time with each other, had a good giggle, lots of fun and realised we shared the same interests and had a really good time. She’s got a really naughty sense of humour, which kind of helps me because I’ve got a really dry sense of humour, so it was good fun.

Bradby: Kate, what did you think of William?

Kate: Well I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy.

Bradby: There’s a story that goes around that you had a picture of him on your wall.

William: There wasn’t just one, there was about 20.

Kate: He wishes. No, I had the Levi’s guy on my wall, not a picture of William, sorry.

We're very happy: Prince William and Kate Middleton give their  first interview after announcing their engagement

We're very happy: Prince William and Kate Middleton give their first interview after announcing their engagement

THE 2007 SPLIT

William: We did split up for a bit. We were both very young, it was at university, we were both finding ourselves as such and being different characters and stuff, it was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up. It was a bit of space and a bit of things like that and it worked out for the better.

Kate: I, at the time, wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person. You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realised, I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger and I really valued that time for me although I didn’t think it at the time.

THE PROPOSAL

William: It was about three weeks ago on holiday in Kenya. We had been talking about marriage for a while so it wasn’t a massively big surprise. I took her up somewhere nice in Kenya and I proposed.

Kate: It was very romantic. There’s a true romantic in there. I really didn’t expect it. It was a total shock... and very exciting.

Bradby: And he produced a ring there and then?

Kate: Yes.

William: I had been carrying it around with me in my rucksack for about three weeks before that and I literally would not let it go. Everywhere I went I was keeping hold of it because I knew this thing, if it disappeared I would be in a lot of trouble and because I’d planned it, it went fine.

You hear a lot of horror stories about proposing and things going horribly wrong it went really, really well and I was really pleased she said yes. It’s my mother’s engagement ring so I thought it was quite nice because obviously she’s not going to be around to share any of the fun and excitement of it all – this was my way of keeping her close to it all.

Kate: It’s beautiful. I just hope I look after it. It’s very, very special.

Great significance: Prince William has given Kate Middleton his  late mother's engagement ring

Great significance: Prince William has given Kate Middleton his late mother's engagement ring

WHY WAIT TO PROPOSE?

William: I wanted to give her a chance to see in and to back out if she needed to before it all got too much. I’m trying to learn from lessons done in the past and I just wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and to see what happens on the other side.

Lady in waiting: The couple prepare for yesterday's media  photocall

Lady in waiting: The couple prepare for yesterday's media photocall

KEEPING THE SECRET

William: We’re like sort of ducks, very calm on the surface with little feet going under the water. It’s been really exciting because we’ve been talking about it for a long time, so for us, it’s a real relief and it’s really nice to be able to tell everybody. Especially for the last two or three weeks – it’s been quite difficult not telling anyone, keeping it to ourselves.

Bradby: Did you ask Kate’s dad and what did he say and what did your respective parents say?

William: I was torn between asking Kate’s dad first and then the realisation that he might actually say ‘No’ dawned upon me. So I thought if I ask Kate first, then he can’t really say no.

Bradby: What did your mum say?

Kate: She was absolutely over the moon. We had quite an awkward situation because I knew and I knew that William had asked my father but I didn’t know if my mother knew. So I came back from Scotland and my mother didn’t make it clear to me whether she knew or not, so both of us were there sort of looking at each other.

MEETING THE IN-LAWS

Kate: I was quite nervous about meeting William’s father, but he was very, very welcoming, very friendly, it couldn’t have gone easier really for me.

Bradby: Meeting the Queen?

Kate: I first met her at Peter ( the Princess Royal’s son) and Autumn’s wedding and again it was amongst a lot of other guests and she was very friendly.

Bradby: You clearly are tremendously fond of each other’s families.

William: ‘Kate’s got a very, very close family. I get on really well with them and I’m very lucky that they’ve been so supportive. Mike and Carole have been really loving and caring and really fun and have been really welcoming towards me, so I’ve felt really a part of the family.

DIANA’S LEGACY

Bradby: William’s mother was this massive iconic figure. Is that worrying? Is that intimidating?

Kate: Obviously I would have loved to have met her and she’s obviously an inspirational woman to look up to. Obviously on this day and going forward and things, you know, it is a wonderful family, the members who I’ve met have achieved a lot and very inspirational and so, yes, I do.

William: There’s no pressure, though. Like Kate said, it is about carving your own future. No one is trying to fill my mother’s shoes, what she did was fantastic. It’s about making your own future and your own destiny and Kate will do a very good job of that.

Relief: The couple said they were delighted to break the news of  their engagement

Relief: The couple said they were delighted to break the news of their engagement

CRITICISM OF KATE’S WORK

Kate: I think I know I’ve been working very hard for the family business, sometimes those days are long days and I think if I know I’m working hard and pulling my weight, both working and playing hard at the same time, I think everyone who I work with can see I am there pulling my weight.

STARTING A FAMILY

Bradby: Kate, you very evidently have a close-knit family.

Kate: Yes. It’s very important to me. And I hope we will be able to have a happy family ourselves. They’ve been great over the years – helping me with difficult times. They are very, very dear to me.

Bradby: People are bound to ask... children, do you want lots of children? See what comes?

William: I think we’ll take it one step at a time. We’ll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want a family so we’ll have to start thinking about that.

EXCITED OR TERRIFIED?

William: We are hugely excited and we are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together and seeing what the future holds.

Kate: It’s obviously nerve-wracking, I don’t know the ropes, William  is obviously used to it, but I’m willing to learn quickly and work hard.  I really hope I can make a difference, even in the smallest way. I am  looking forward to helping as much as I can.


Teasing and touching gently, a couple completely at ease...

BY Paul Harris

She was wearing Diana’s ring, holding the arm of the late princess’s son.

Every word she said was being reported around the world, every nuance and gesture broadcast live to hundreds of millions of TV viewers.

There could hardly have been a more testing debut for Kate Middleton than her first formal appearance before the cameras as she stood side by side with Prince William.

Beaming: Kate Middleton and Prince William pose after announcing  their engagement

Beaming: Kate Middleton and Prince William pose after announcing their engagement

But with a beaming smile – and a clear determination to overcome her nervousness – the young woman in line to become a princess, maybe a Queen, confidently began the first day of the rest of her life.

In a state room at St James’s Palace, plain Miss Middleton prepared to embark on a lifestyle under scrutiny as the newest recruit to the royal family.

The happy couple: Prince William and Kate Middleton in relaxed  form

The happy couple: Prince William and Kate Middleton in relaxed form

And although she was deemed to have emerged triumphant from this difficult baptism, you couldn’t help feeling we had been here before.

Some of the phrases she chose to describe her engagement bore an uncanny similarity to those used by Lady Diana Spencer when she and Prince Charles went through the same process in 1981.

Some of the looks they gave each other echoed those which Charles and Diana shared between the laughter and rather cautious enthusiasm.

The difference yesterday was that Kate and William were unmistakeably in love, clearly a couple who actually knew, to borrow Prince Charles’s phrase, whatever love meant.

But, blimey, they took long enough to get around to it.

Her nine-year transition from Home Counties girl and university chum of a future king of England took longer than some royal marriages last. (They don’t get to celebrate too many silver weddings in this family).

Fortunately, perhaps, the recruitment of a commoner to ‘The Firm’ was a slow and carefully researched process.

Continuing this gradual theme, six hours passed yesterday between the official announcement and our first sighting of the gleaming new royal couple.

For a privileged few journalists, that came not in the blaze of flashguns and TV lights that practically seared them into the St James’s Palace carpet, but over tea and bone china at a far less formal private chat with William and Kate.

What they told us here was all off the record, simply a courtesy. But the impression they gave was of a couple completely at ease with each other, sometimes teasing one another, holding hands, touching gently.

Perhaps significantly, the prince allowed his new fiancee to be encircled by a posse of journalists for a time, leaving her to fend for herself, except for an occasional glance in her direction and an ear to the questions.

Not surprisingly for a chap who told his father and the Queen about the engagement only hours before it was made public, Prince William didn’t betray any real secrets.

Elsewhere though it emerged yesterday he had carried the ring around rather precariously in a rucksack before proposing to Kate at the ‘romantic’ location he had chosen to do the deed.

He already had her father’s permission, and although his brother Prince Harry wasn’t formally told until yesterday, one suspects he would have had a good idea.

Taking the plunge: Kate Middleton and Prince William attend the  wedding of friend Chiara Hunt in 2006

Taking the plunge: Kate Middleton and Prince William attend the wedding of friend Chiara Hunt in 2006

Many of their friends, after all, had already taken the plunge; not being first among them must have made much easier for Prince William.

Kate, too, would have been bursting to break the news – she was repeatedly asked about the prospect of engagement when she and William attended a friend’s West Country wedding recently.

‘Maybe he’ll get round to it some day,’ she diplomatically replied, even though she had already said yes to William’s proposal.

Apparently she has also been making it clear she prefers to be known as Catherine. A clue to a forthcoming title of Princess Catherine or Queen Catherine? Or just revenge against headline writers who prefer the brevity of Kate?

Whatever, back at St James’s yesterday, it was patently a relief for each of them to talk about their engagement at last.

So that’s what she sounds like! The voice was a surprise at first, slightly more upmarket than many of us imagined.

Her responses were pretty quick too, including a couple of clever quips and suitably deferential compliments to her newly betrothed beau. ‘She’s very good at flattery,’ the Prince told us.

What about joining the royal family? ‘It’s quite a daunting prospect but hopefully I’ll take it in my stride,’ she said. ‘And William’s a great teacher so hopefully he’ll be able to help me along the way.

‘He’s treated me very well, as the loving boyfriend he is. He is very supportive of me through the good times and also through the bad times.’

The proposal? ‘It was very romantic,’ she said, adding intriguingly: ‘And it was very personal.’

Uh-oh. Dangerous territory here. One of the watching Palace press officers put a hand to his chin. He must have known the down-on-one-knee question was about to follow.

William intervened with a laugh. ‘That’s going to stay a state secret,’ he said. Just as Kate had predicted, her ‘great teacher’ was helping her along the way.

Calm and collected: Kate Middleton and Prince William remain  poised after announcing their engagement

Calm and collected: Kate Middleton and Prince William remain poised after announcing their engagement

Nervous proposal: Prince William admitted he planned popping the  question meticulously

Nervous proposal: Prince William admitted he planned popping the question meticulously

His responses to how he felt about the engagement, however, were somewhat blokeish. Maybe he knew he would be ribbed by his RAF mates when he got back to base. ‘The time is right now,’ he said.

It was when he was asked about the engagement ring that the tone changed. This time he spoke with great poignancy.

‘As you may have recognised, it’s my mother’s engagement ring, so of course it’s very special to me. And Kate’s very special to me now as well, and it’s only right the two are put together.

‘It was my way of making sure my mother didn’t miss out on today, the excitement, and the fact that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.’

Kate gave him that look again. The TV lights made her peacock blue dress shimmer and she bowed her head slightly. From time to time as she spoke, she crossed her legs to give the impression she was relaxed.

But study the strength of the grip she kept on William’s right arm and you might get a pointer to the kind of strain the scrutiny put her under. It surfaced even before they had finished speaking.

A couple of female journalists concluded she looked ‘too skinny’. (I was berated for suggesting she looked comfortably slim). Someone else said the shoes were a little plain.

Oh well. Here we go again. There will be much more of this in the months running up to their wedding, and undoubtedly beyond.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330280/Prince-William-Kate-Middleton-engagement-We-want-start-family.html#ixzz15VSYsZGY

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