| Kate Middleton Learns The Lessons of Diana |
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| Written by Joanne Leyland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 21 May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Last weekend we saw reports that Prince William's girlfriend is desperate not to be likened to Diana, Princess of Wales. Now comes an intriguing claim that Kate Middleton has embarked on an unofficial media training course on her road to official royal life by watching video footage of her boyfriend's late mother.  As well as watching videos of Diana and other senior royals to see how they cope with the media attention, acccording to Katie Nicholls in the Mail on Sunday, 24-year-old Kate has spoken to senior Palace aides to seek guidance on how she should behave when she appears in public. More significantly, however, Kate has enjoyed more private meetings with the Queen. Kate was first invited to spend quality time with the Queen during the Royal Family's summer holiday at Balmoral last August. Her Majesty is no doubt keen to make sure her grandson's girlfriend of around four years doesn't suffer a similarly traumatic entrance into official royal life as that endured by Diana in the early 1980s. A source tells the Mail columnist: "Diana learned how to deal with the cameras, but she mad mistakes at first. She was pictured in a see-through skirt when the Press first realised she was Charles's girlfriend." "Orders have come from the very top that Kate is to be protected now she is a permanent part of William's life. She is seen as part of 'The Firm' {King George VI's name for the Royal Family} and everyone is very happy with Kate, right up to the highest level. As a potential Queen, Kate needs to know how to cope with the spotlight." Once again, there is speculation that William and Kate will marry. Not for the first time, Palace sources are reported to have said that a date "next spring or early summer" has been pencilled in for the wedding of the second-in-line to the throne and the girlfriend he first met in his student days at St. Andrews University. Kate had rooms close to William's in the University's St Salvatore's hall of residence before the two moved into a flat with two other friends. Alongside William, Kate graduated from St. Andrews University last June with a 2:1 degree in History of Art. It was following the ceremony that she first met the Queen, following which Her Majesty invited Kate and William to dinner at Balmoral. A royal aide said of the Queen's relationship with William and Kate: "HM is keen to get to know his girlfriend, especially as she has seen how fond of each other they have become. She also happens to like Kate, they got on very well when they met after the graduation ceremony at St Andrews in June." In recent times there've been mutterings about the fact Kate has yet to get a job. Her earlier plan to set up a business marketing children's clothes — for which she even went so far as to embark on lessons in accountancy from a family friend — is yet to materialise, a university contemporary saying: "It's incredible that Kate doesn't do any work while supposedly setting up this business venture. It's almost as if she feels there is no point as she's going to marry Prince William. We're all wondering when, and if, she'll get a job." As to be expected, a Clarence House spokesman refused to comment on the report of a royal engagement. Comment on this article
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