Haunting detail in viral Kate Middleton video
The Wales’ latest video has racked up over five million views but there’s a “haunting” moment that exposes a sad truth.
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If there is one thing that King Charles should be giving thanks for this year, along with Prince Andrew’s informal home detention holding, the restocking of Buckingham Palace’s gift shop’s homebrand gin and the success of the repopulation of the common hedgehog, it is his Wales grandchildren.
Not because their Christmas cards are any particular chop – they can only clumsily glue spray-painted gold penne as well as any other primary schooler – but because they might save the monarchy yet.
The legal working age in the United Kingdom is 16, a standard that clearly does not apply to junior HRHs given that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have now undertaken their second round of royal graft in a matter of three days.
Last Friday they belted out a few carols in the name of the family business at Westminster Abbey for mum Kate, the Princess of Wales’ now annual carol service and then on Monday, the official Kensington Palace social media account released a video of them helping out at a baby bank (see top of article).
And by ‘video’ I mean what the Palace has somewhat grandiosely termed “a film by Will Warr” as if they are hoping to put it in contention for Cannes next year.
At one minute, 50-seconds it is a charm-a-thon that seems entirely designed to tug at the heartstrings and sway the undecided to the cause of the crown. (Monarchy, like money, never sleeps.)
It’s potent stuff and all about as subtle as one of Carole Middleton’s original sporks to the eyeball. (At the time of writing it had been viewed more than five million in the eight hours since it had gone live.)
Kate, along with husband Prince William, the Prince of Wales could not be more energetically selling brand Wales than if they were Boca Raton timeshare salesmen who work on commission.
Which is all fine and dandy and right there in their job descriptions, alongside the reproductive demands and willingness to occasionally pull a pint for the cameras. (Tick and tick for the prince and princess.)
However, there is one moment in this that I find a bit haunting.
It comes towards the end of the “film” when Kate, with her arms around George’s shoulders, says to him, “You can see how rewarding this work is, knowing that you’re helping out others” to which the ten-year-old gets out a perfunctory “yeah”.
The prince hardly seems rapt and the moment feels forced, the princess’ expounding of this particular detail as pointed as great-great-great-Grandfather England’s go-to sabre. (That’s what the late Queen called her grandfather George V.)
Because this is it for the kid. Forever. For the next 90 years. What plays out in this “film” is what George’s entire life will be like – him turning up, day after day after day, for decades, walking into strange rooms, making nice with slightly over awed charity workers and do gooders, all the while very much on show.
Really, it would not matter if the prince quit formal schooling tomorrow and spent the next eight years until he hit adulthood playing Assassin’s Creed and making the under butler fetch him Subway foot longs.
Yes, I know, George will probably go to university like his parents and get some respectable degree in a respectable subject (no interpretative dance diplomas here) at a respectable sandstone establishment that turns our barristers and future white collar criminals at a decent clip.
But really, will he need it? What we are watching in this “film” is the prince’s entire future play out. Just to really flog a refrain to death – this is it.
Note that it was only the future King George VIII who was the recipient of this particular lesson from Kate, with Charlotte and Louis nowhere to be seen. While they might have a smidgen more latitude and choice over their futures, the eldest prince has absolutely zip, zero, zilch.
I know that feeling sympathy and pity for a boy who will never want for a single solitary thing might seem nonsensical. The life ahead for George will be the most materially privileged one imaginable, including him one day being able to boast of owning more central London real estate than a sanctioned Muscovite and the entire UK seabed. No future class of 2031 Old Etonian will ever be able to beat him in the bragging stakes.
However, on another level, how can we not feel for George? At an age when most children his age are fighting over Nintendo Switches and who gets the front seat, he is already on the job.
Watching the Princess of Wales instructing her son, helping him to begin to understand what lies ahead of him, this gentle laying out of his fate makes for uneasy viewing.
Fundamentally what we are witnessing here is Kate showing George how narrow and how limited his future already is.
I’m sure a life of service and of helping others would be incredibly rich and rewarding but it is still a life bereft of real choice and where whatever George’s actual hopes, dreams and aspirations will have to be not so much stifled as suffocated. History calls, kiddo.
On one level, in this video, this is Kate just following in Diana, the late Princess of Wales’ or even Her late Majesty the Queen’s footsteps, in terms of slowly introducing their children to the responsibilities and demands that come with membership of their family.
The difference in the case of the Wales kids is that this process is that this acclimatisation is happening publicly thanks to their parents’ willingness to package it up and use it for promotional purposes. (Or perhaps their parents’ innate understanding that they have no choice but to serve up their children for the adoring public if the prince and princess want to shore up future support for Crown Inc.)
For example, Diana used to take William and brother Prince Harry to visit homelessness charities she supported, where the boys met those less fortunate and got used to the idea of the obligations that lay ahead. Crucially, this was not done anywhere near professional cameras.
George, Charlotte and Louis will have no such luck.
What’s that? Merry Christmas? Maybe for some. And by ‘some’ I mean those who have remembered to get their Palace gin orders in time for December 25.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Originally published as Haunting detail in viral Kate Middleton video
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