Kate: The making of a very middle class Princess (PART 1)

By Katie Nicholl



So in love: They had spent the summer apart but look closer than ever at this university gala dinner in October 2004


The body language speaks of intimacy and desire. These exclusive and previously unseen photographs show two young lovers, comfort­able in their own skins and with each other.

They hold each other close, before laughingly pulling apart. Then the man twirls his partner, his left hand resting on her slender waist with practised ease. Her little black dress may be conservative but there is no ­hiding her allure: she is toned and lithe, and there is an unmistakable sparkle in her eye.

He is classically handsome. He wears his dark suit well, looks relaxed, and is clearly as besotted by his consort as she by him. The spark between them is tangible.

Whatever ups and downs they may have had, or may still lie ahead, at this dance at St Andrews University in 2004, they are a couple of whom envious onlookers will say: ‘They look great together. They are great together.’


The Prettiest Girl At 'Sally's'

By the end of freshers’ week, Kate ­Middleton had been crowned the prettiest girl at Sally’s, the nickname for St Salvator’s Hall, her hall of residence at St Andrews.

And she had already caught the eye of fellow student Prince William. He had noticed her as soon as he arrived – it was hard not to. It was September 2001 and William was beginning a four-year history of art course.

He settled in quickly at Sally’s and although the town’s 16,000 residents were initially inquisitive following his arrival, they soon left him alone. William wanted to be treated the same as everyone else, and at St Andrews he was.

The media had agreed with Buckingham Palace to leave the Prince in peace after he gave a brief interview and attended a photocall on the day of his arrival. He could walk down the street without being bothered and shop at the local Tesco.


William soon set about making friends. Sally’s, one of the university’s 11 halls of residence, has both male and female ­living quarters. As he bounded down the stairs carrying his various books and folders, William would often bump into the same brunette, who happened to be on the same course.

Kate was shy and quieter than the other girls, which William liked, and he looked forward to their meetings. Often Kate would go for a run before breakfast and arrive at the dining hall just before staff stopped serving.

Within weeks William was bold enough to invite her to join him. Every morning he and his friends sat in the same place, next to the head table, where a crimson throne and 18 seats were res­erved for wardens and deans.

The impressive ground-floor dining hall contained beautiful stained-glass windows and was decorated with oil paintings of philosophers from the Scottish Enlightenment. A cooked breakfast was always available for the students to eat but, health-conscious like his father, William would choose muesli and fruit – as did Kate.

The pair quickly discovered they had plenty in common: Kate was a country girl who loved playing sports and was a keen swimmer, like William. She was also a good skier and, just like William, had enjoyed a gap-year travelling around the world before going to St Andrews.

Kate had spent several months in Florence, and she chatted with William about the Renaissance artists they would soon be studying and the courses they planned to take. She also got along well with William’s friends Fergus Boyd, a former classmate of the Prince at Eton, and Olli Chadwick-Healey.

They were part of a group known as the Sally’s boys, which also included Ali Coutts-Wood, Graham Booth, Charlie Nelson and Oli Baker, who would later share a house with William and Kate.

If William was ever forced to miss a lecture, Kate would take notes for him, and at the end of the day they would catch up over a drink in the ­Common Room, with its floor-to-ceiling Georgian windows. When it came to socialising, William kept a low profile. He joined the water-polo team and would swim most mornings with Kate at the luxury Old Course Hotel in St Andrews. He also cycled along the seafront and, in the evening, occasionally dropped into the student union for a game of pool.

The truth was that William was developing a reputation for being aloof and even a touch boring. The glamorous undergraduates who spent thousands on new wardrobes and drinking in the town’s fashionable bars hoping to happen upon the Prince were disappointed.

The student with a heavenly derriere

During his first term, William started dating Carley Massy-Birch, an English language and creative-writing student. William was often invited to supper at Carley’s home, where he would step over her muddy Hunter Wellington boots in the hallway.

Carley was also a country girl, which appealed to William – he had, of course, been brought up at Highgrove in the Gloucestershire countryside. ‘I’m a real country bumpkin,’ Carley told me. ‘I think that was why we had a connection. William was in the year below me, and we just happened to meet through the general St Andrews melee.

‘It’s such a small place that it was impossible not to bump into William, and after a while there was nothing weird about seeing him around. We got on well, but I think we would have got on well even if nothing had been going on romantically. It was very much a university thing, just a regular university romance.’


They discussed literature, and Carley told William all about her home life in Devon. Sometimes they would enjoy pints of cider at The Castle pub in North Street, and play board games.

‘There wasn’t really a club at St Andrews so we tended to go to pubs and bars, and there was always a good dinner party going on,’ recalled Carley. Although Kate had been voted the prettiest girl at St Salvator’s, Carley’s derriere was voted the best at St Andrews. ‘We would joke that Carley’s bottom had been sculpted by the gods,’ recalled one of her friends. William was very taken with her, which was completely understandable.

Unlike the hordes of made-up, pashmina-clad undergraduates who devoted their time to stalking William, Carley was happy to stay in and cook for him, and their romance was so beneath the radar that it was reported only years after they both graduated.

Their affair was to be short-lived, however, and ended somewhat stickily when Carley told William he had to make a decision between her and Arabella Musgrave, a young woman hundreds of miles away who seemed to be proving something of a distraction.

It was during the summer of 2001, before William started at St Andrews, that Arabella caught his eye. She was the 18-year-old daughter of Major Nich­olas Musgrave, who managed the Cirencester Park Polo Club, and the pair had known each other since childhood.

That summer they met again at a house party hosted by the van Cutsem family, long-standing friends of the Prince of Wales. As she walked in, William did a double-take. They danced and drank into the early hours, and when Arabella said goodnight to the guests, the Prince ­quietly slipped out of the room to follow her. It was the beginning of a passionate romance, and the two spent as much time together that summer as possible.

But by September, when William left for his first year at St Andrews, he and Arabella had already made the mutual decision to put their relationship on hold.

William would be meeting new people at the university, and Arabella could not expect him to wait for her. However, it wasn’t long before William became bored in Scotland. He missed his friends and going to his favourite London nightclubs.

The advantage of St Andrews being so small was that he was well protected, but the town could be claustrophobic. He also missed Arabella. Despite his decision to cool things with her, he took comfort from the fact that she was back at home, and when he returned to Highgrove for weekends, they would meet.


The ‘wobble’ in his first term

Prince Charles knew he had a crisis on his hands when William returned home at Christmas and announced he did not want to go back to university for his second term. He complained that he was not enjoying the courses and that St Andrews was too far away.

Charles listened patiently. He knew William could be temper­amental, and that the situation was delicate. Presumably, William could leave if he was miserable, but Charles suggested he give it another term.


The main problem appeared to be that William had no interest in his course and was finding the workload challenging. ‘It was really no different from what many first-year students go through,’ Prince Charles’s former private secretary Mark Bolland recalled. ‘We approached the whole thing as a wobble which was entirely normal.’

After frank discussions with ­college dons, a deal was struck. ‘It would have been a public relations disaster for St Andrews if he had left after one term, and we worked very hard to keep him,’ said Andrew Neil, the university’s former rector. ‘We gave him pastoral care, and when he suggested switching to geography we made sure there were no roadblocks.

‘By the time William came back for the second term, he had settled in. He made a lot of friends and having met him quite a few times, I think he was happy in the town. William was protected by his fellow students, who formed a circle around him and looked out for him.

‘He got the blues, which happens. We have a lot of public school boys and girls who get up here, and by November, when the weather gets grey and cold, wish they were back home. William was a long way from home.’

William later admitted: ‘I don’t think I was homesick – I was more daunted. My father was very understanding and realised I had the same problem as he probably had. We chatted a lot and in the end we both realised – I definitely realised – that I had to come back.’ Returning to Scotland, William was much happier with his switch to geography.


'Wow,’ he gasped. ‘Kate looks hot!’

It was March 27, 2002, the night of the annual Don’t Walk charity fashion show at the five-star St Andrews Bay Hotel, and William had paid £200 for a front-row ticket. As Kate shimmied down the catwalk wearing black underwear and a daring, see-through dress, William turned to his close friend Fergus Boyd and whispered: ‘Wow, Kate’s hot!’

Another of the models that night recalled: ‘Kate was great on the catwalk. She and everyone, including William, knew it.’

At a party after the show, William decided to make his move. As the music throbbed and beautiful young things sat sipping home-made cocktails, William and Kate were huddled in a quiet corner, deep in conversation.


Sanctuary: Balgove House, a cottage shared by William and Kate while at university


As they clinked their glasses to toast Kate’s success, William leaned in to kiss her. It was Kate who pulled away, mom­entarily stunned that he had been so bold in a room full of strangers.

At the time she was dating Rupert Finch, a fourth-year student, but William didn’t seem to care. ‘It was clear to us that William was smitten with Kate,’ remembered one of their friends who was at the party and who witnessed the moment. ‘He actually told her she was a knockout that night, which caused her to blush. There was definitely chemistry between them, and Kate had really made an impression on William.

‘She played it very cool, and at one point when William seemed to lean in to kiss her, she pulled away. She didn’t want to give off the wrong impression or make it too easy for Will.’


After her impressive debut on the catwalk, things would never be quite the same between William and Kate.

William later insisted in an interview on his 21st birthday, June 21, 2003, that he was single, but the truth was that he had fallen for his pretty friend.

One of William’s conditions for staying at St Andrews was that he would be allowed to move out of his halls of residence after his first year and share a flat with friends.

So in September 2002, at the start of his second year, William moved to 13a Hope Street in the ­centre of town. It was a luxury no Prince before him had enjoyed and exactly the normality he craved.

There were the necessary security issues to consider, of course: the property was fitted with bullet­-proof windows, a bomb-proof front door and state-of-the-art laser security system that came with a thick instruction manual.

The floor-to-ceiling windows were protected with reinforced, full-length shutters.
William’s room was the biggest and it looked out on to an overgrown private garden and the back of the student union building in Market Street.

The Prince had decided to move in with Kate, ­Fergus Boyd and another student, Olivia Bleasdale. They each paid £100 a week in rent for the two-storey property and shared all the cleaning duties.

‘They did throw dinner parties and took turns to go shopping for gro­ceries,’ one of their friends recalled.

‘William was part of the dinner-party brigade, and being seen in Tesco was all part of it. It was a bit of a meeting place for the great and the good. Fergus would get dressed to the nines and only ever wore different shades of white.

'William was always with him, so it was not uncommon for girls to stake out Tesco in the hope of seeing them.’

William and Kate were determined to keep their fledgling romance quiet, and behind the closed doors of Hope Street they could. Their bedrooms were on ­separate landings, but by this stage it was nothing more than pretence.

William and Kate had fallen in love and were enjoying a conventional university romance, albeit one involving elaborate cover-ups and decoys.

In an effort to keep their relationship below the radar for as long as possible, they would leave the house at different times and arrive at dinner parties separately, and made a pact never to hold hands in public.

By the end of their second year the relationship was a close one. When William attended Kate’s belated 21st birthday party in June 2003 at her family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire, the glance she threw him across the room when he walked into the Twenties-themed party was more than platonic.

But then at William’s own 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle later that month, it seemed as though Kate was barely registering with William – he seemed pre­occupied with a very pretty girl named Jecca Craig.


‘Mock engagement’ that never was

William had first met Jecca, the daughter of British conservationist Ian Craig and his wife Jane, in 1998 in Kenya during a school holiday. The Prince had fallen in love with Africa and returned during his gap year to spend several weeks learning about conservation at the Craigs’ 55,000-acre game preserve, situated in the beautiful Lewa Downs in the foothills of Mount Kenya.

William had adored every minute of it and years later would get involved with the Tusk Trust, a conservation charity that finances some of Lewa’s activities. He is now a patron of the charity. Ian Craig recalled: ‘William just loves Africa, that’s clear. He did everything from rhino-spotting to anti-poaching patrols to checking fences. He’s a great boy.’

It was not long before rumours were circulating among their friends that something was going on between William and Jecca. He had apparently had a secret crush on Jecca since the first time he met her. She was beautiful, with long blonde hair, deep-blue eyes and legs like a gazelle.

But when it was reported in British newspapers that the two had staged a mock engagement ceremony to pledge their love to each other before William returned to England, the Prince instructed his aides to deny this had ever happened.

It was a rare move – usually the Palace never comments on the private lives of William or his brother Harry – but on this occasion, William wanted the story denied. ‘There’s been a lot of speculation about every single girl I’m with, and it actually does quite irritate me after a while, more so because it’s a complete pain for the girls,’ he said.

The tale had rattled him and embarrassed Jecca, who at the time was dating Edinburgh University undergraduate Henry Ropner, a former Etonian and a friend of William. The denial did little to quash the rumours of a romance, however, and as Kate raised her champagne flute to toast the birthday Prince at his aptly themed Out Of Africa celebration, it was Jecca who had pride of place next to William at the head table.

But by the end of the summer, the ­relationship with Kate seemed back on track. It soon became an open secret at St Andrews, and William and Kate were desperate for some privacy.

While Fergus decided to stay on at Hope Street, William and Kate chose to move to Balgove House at Strathtyrum, a sprawling private estate just outside St Andrews. The estate is owned by wealthy landowner Henry Cheape, a ­distant cousin of the Prince and a close friend of the Royal Family.

The impressive four-bedroom cottage was far more private than Hope Street. Unmarked police cars patrolled the estate and William’s protection officers lived in the assorted outbuildings. As with all his residences, the cottage had been made secure for the Prince, complete with bomb-proof doors and windows. William and Kate intended to entertain frequently: he installed a champagne fridge as soon as they moved in, while Kate set about dressing the kitchen windows with pretty red-and-white gingham curtains.

The couple enjoyed long, romantic walks, and when it was warm enough, they would pack a picnic hamper and spend pleasant afternoons stretched out on a blanket, sharing a bottle of chilled white wine. They were blissful days, made all the more romantic by the fact that the Press was still unaware of their relationship. But the secret would soon be out . . .


Bottles of wine and a roaring log fire

Against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains in the Swiss Alps, William put his arm around Kate. Wearing dark glasses and wrapped up against the cold in their salopettes and ski jackets, they waited in line for a ski lift.

As the T-bar arrived, William helped Kate on, and they slowly made their way up the mountainside, ski poles in their hands.

The photo of William gazing lovingly at Kate that was published in The Sun on April 1, 2004, was no April Fools’ joke. The rumours, which had been around for months, were confirmed: William and Kate were definitely more than just friends.


The first picture: Skiing together at Klosters in April 2004, William looks lovingly towards Kate and proves they are definitely a couple


‘If I fancy a girl and she fancies me back, which is rare, I ask her out. But at the same time I don’t want to put them in an awkward situation, because a lot of people don’t understand what comes with knowing me, for one – and secondly, if they were my girlfriend, the excitement it would probably cause,’ William had remarked in that 21st birthday interview in June 2003.

He was right about the excitement. He had chosen to go to Klosters, where the Royal Family are photographed skiing every year, and he had made no attempt to disguise his affection for Kate.

They were with a group of friends that included Harry Legge-Bourke, the brother of his former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, Guy Pelly, William van Cutsem and his girlfriend Katie James. The ­Palace was furious and accused The Sun of breaching the embargo that protected Prince William during his university years. But the newspaper had decided that this was a scoop just too good to turn down, running the story under the headline Finally . . . Wills Gets A Girl.

The truth was, William had been dating Kate for many months. But now the flood­gates had opened, and the world wanted to know everything about this shy, pretty and unassuming girl.

While some at the Palace had dismissed Kate as not being blue-blooded enough for the Prince (her parents Michael and Carole own an online party-equipment company), she had other qualities that were far more important to William.


She was polite to the photographers who now pursued her, and she quickly adopted the Royal rule of never speaking out.

She also insisted that her family never discuss her relationship with William. As Princess Diana’s former private secretary Pat­rick Jephson noted: ‘We know very little about her and probably never will, providing they do their job right.

Historically a degree of mystery about Royalty has been an advantage – we project on to them what we want.’

According to one of her friends at St Andrews, Kate remained level-headed during the early months of their courtship. ‘She never got above her station, and even though she had secured the most sought-after boy at St Andrews, she never gloated. Kate was actually quite insecure about her looks and never considered herself pretty. She was very sweet and very shy.’

Like Diana, Kate quickly had to adapt to being in the spotlight, but her tran­sition into Royal life was much smoother – unlike Diana, Kate enjoyed being at Highgrove, Balmoral and Sandringham, where she would later accompany William on grouse and pheasant shoots. She had practised with William on the Strathtyrum estate, where they were allowed to shoot birds for food as part of their rental agreement.

In the same way that Charles had been given the use of Wood Farm at Sandringham while he was a student at Cambridge, the Queen allowed William to use a cottage called Tam-na-Ghar at Balmoral as a getaway. Tucked away in the remote countryside, the 120-year-old cottage underwent a £150,000 renovation, complete with a bath big enough for two.

After their final lecture on Fridays, William and Kate would drive to ­Balmoral from St Andrews in ­William’s black Volkswagen Golf, ­followed by his protection officers. Like William, Kate loved walking across the moors and strolling by the River Dee. In the evenings they would cook a meal, share a bottle of red wine and keep warm in front of a roaring log fire.

Sometimes they were joined by friends from St Andrews, or Kate’s siblings Pippa and James – whose trophy stag heads line the walls of the Middleton family house – would be invited for a weekend’s shoot. They would all compete to bag the most birds.


A boozy swim round the moat


It was summer 2004 when William and Kate’s love affair underwent its first serious test. With one year to go before they both graduated, the 22-year-old Prince needed some space – he told ­several of his friends at university he was feeling ‘claustrophobic’.

Until now, both William and Kate had chosen not to discuss what would happen after they finished at St Andrews, but with their finals looming, it was an issue that needed addressing.

William decided that a holiday would provide him with some thinking time and planned a boys-only sailing trip to Greece with Guy Pelly and other friends, to take place as soon as they left college for the summer.

Kate’s relationship with Guy was turbulent – she considered him immature and potentially trouble­some. It was Guy who used to buy William pornographic maga­zines when they were teenagers, and she had heard all about their drink-fuelled weekends at Highgrove.

There was also a rumour among their friends that after a night of heavy drinking at Club H – the basement den with a bar that William had set up with his brother Harry at Highgrove – William and Guy had covered one of their girlfriends in chocolate ice cream, which they then proceeded to lick off.

Then there was the occasion when Guy challenged William to a midnight swim at the 21st birthday party of their friend James Tollemache at Helmingham Hall in Suffolk.
Both William and Guy had been drinking heavily, but that did not stop them stripping down to their boxer shorts, diving in and swimming a lap in the murky moat.

It seemed that wherever there was trouble, Guy was not far away, and Kate was wary of him. She was annoyed, if not surprised, when she found out that Guy had arranged for an all-female crew for the yacht in Greece. So she packed her bags and headed home to Berkshire to spend the summer with her family.


The 'other' women: William flew to the US to spend time with Anna Sloan, left, in 2004 and he was a visitor to the Chelsea home of Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, although she rejected his advances


A number of things had caused her to question William’s commitment, although she had not raised them with him yet. One was his friendship with an American heiress named Anna Sloan, whom he had met through mutual friends at Edinburgh University, where Anna was studying.

Anna had lost her father, businessman George Sloan, in a tragic shooting accident on the family’s 360-acre estate in Nashville, Tennessee, and she and William had bonded over the loss of one of their parents.

When William accepted an invitation from Anna to accompany her and a group of friends to Tennessee for a holiday before he went to Greece, it hurt Kate deeply. She suspected William might have feelings for the 22-year-old. However, according to her friends, Anna was not romantically interested in William.

And then there was William’s budding relationship with another stunning heiress, Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. While Kate was girl-next-door pretty, ­Isabella had cover-girl looks, a title and a stately pile to boot. That summer William visited the Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe family home in Chelsea to
see her. Isabella, daughter of banking heiress Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon, was single at the time. Sadly for William, she had no aspirations to date him and, des­pite his amorous advances, declared that she was not interested.

Meanwhile, Kate had accepted an ­invitation to spend a fortnight at Fergus Boyd’s family holiday home in the ­Dordogne with some friends from St Andrews. Among the group were Kate’s friends Olivia Bleasdale and Ginny ­Fraser. From her downcast mood, Kate’s friends soon guessed that something was wrong, and one evening she confided to them that she and William were taking a break from each other.

‘She got quite drunk on white wine and really let her guard down,’ recalled one of the group. ‘She was debating whether or not she should text or call him. She said how sad she was and how much she was missing William, but she never mentioned it after that.’

I had reported the news of their separ­ation that summer in The Mail on Sunday, and tellingly there was no denial from Clarence House. Privately, William again complained to friends that he was feeling claustrophobic and was already thinking ahead to the summer after graduation, when he was planning to return to Kenya to see Jecca Craig – another fly in the ointment as far as Kate was concerned.

‘The last thing William wants is a high-profile split in the crucial months leading up to his finals,’ I was told at the time by a source close to William. On the advice of her mother Carole, Kate gave William some breathing space.

Once back at university it was made all the harder because they were living together, but instead of spending weekends in St Andrews or at Balmoral, Kate would return home to be with her parents at their home in Berkshire.

It was obviously the break that William needed, and by the autumn they were back together – a fact confirmed at Christmas. Although Kate had a con­dition: word had reached her of William’s visits to Isabella, and she insisted that William was not to contact her again.

With their finals looming in May, the pair agreed to take things slowly. Kate had stayed away from Edward van Cutsem’s wedding to the Duke of Westminster’s daughter Lady Tamara Grosvenor in November 2004, but she happily accep­ted an invitation to Prince Charles’s 56th birthday party at Highgrove later that month.

The following March, Prince Charles invited her to Klosters for his pre-wedding holiday. Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were to be married on April 9, 2005, and the Prince wanted one last skiing holiday with his sons first. It had really been intended as a boys-only trip, but Kate was not left out.

She was photographed taking a ­gondola up the slopes with Charles and enjoying lunch with the Princes and some of their friends.
At Charles’s wedding, a civil ceremony in Windsor, William was a witness together with Camilla’s son Tom, and had the added responsibility of looking after the wedding rings. But since she and William were not yet engaged, Kate was not invited to the intimate family wedding itself.

Camilla was now part of the Royal Family, and when William graduated on June 23, 2005, she was there with Charles, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. William and Kate had dreaded and looked forward to the day in equal measure.

They had enjoyed one last party before their finals and, in keeping with tradition, attended the annual May Ball. Uncharacteristically, Kate drank so much that Fergus Boyd had to carry her out before the night ended. Now, as William and Kate walked into Younger Hall for the graduation ceremony, they exchanged a smile and took their seats.

The Queen smiled broadly as William knelt before the ­university Chancellor’s wooden pulpit to collect his parchment. Minutes later Kate was called to the stage as Catherine Middleton.

When it came to the end of the ceremony, the words of Vice-Chancellor Dr Brian Lang must have seemed particularly poignant. ‘You will have made lifelong friends,’ he told graduates. ‘You may have met your husband or wife. Our title as the top matchmaking university in Britain signifies so much that is good about St Andrews, so we rely on you to go forth and multiply.’

Following graduation, William travelled to New Zealand, where he represented the Queen at events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and spent time with the touring British and Irish Lions rugby team. Then he visited Jecca Craig in Kenya, but this time he took Kate with him. He wanted her to experience the wild beauty of the country and reassure her that she had no cause to worry about Jecca.

William whisked Kate off for a romantic holiday during which they stayed at the £1,500-a-night Masai-owned Il Ngwesi Lodge in the Mukogodo Hills of central Kenya. During the day William worked on the Craig family’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. In the evenings he and Kate would sip cocktails and dine alfresco. The post-graduation holiday had been a blissful fortnight.

In the New Year, which William and Kate had seen in together at a cottage on the Sandringham estate, it was William’s turn to prove he could rise to the challenge of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where his brother Harry was already in his seventh month.

Knowing he would not see Kate for more than a month, William had taken Harry’s advice and whisked her off on yet another holiday to Klosters following the New Year celebrations.

Just two years earlier the couple’s romance had been revealed on these slopes as William put his arm around Kate in an unthinking show of intimacy. This time, in spite of the cameras, there was no holding back. Standing together in the deep powder snow, William pulled Kate towards him and kissed her.

William had yet to pop the question, but as far as Royal insiders and his inner circle were concerned, it was only a matter of time. In Kate Middleton, Prince William had found a potential bride.

Before he headed to Sandhurst, Kate had arranged a farewell drinks party for William at Clarence House and had been dreading the moment they would have to say goodbye.

She wanted to make sure they could at least celebrate before he left for Sandhurst.

The Prince arrived to begin his Army officer training on January 8, 2006, accompanied by his father and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, his private sec­retary. After being introduced to Major-General Andrew Ritchie, William became a member of Blenheim Company, bade farewell to his father and was shown to his room overlooking Old College, his home for the next 44 weeks.

PSST... Kate was given a security pass to Clarence House in summer 2007 - but did not meet the Queen until Peter Phillips’s wedding in May 2008

PSST... Kate and sister Pippa were once dubbed the Wisteria Sisters, because they were ‘decorative and fragrant with a ferocious ability to climb’

PSST... Files of suitable brides for William – compiled as protocol by Palace aides - will now be archived. As a commoner, Kate Middleton was never included

PSST... Kate reportedly turned down £1million to appear on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! when she and William briefly separated in 2007



Source:Dailymail

Here's someone who WON'T be going to the Royal wedding: Sarah Ferguson fails to make the cut

By Fay Schlesinger



Snubbed: Sarah Ferguson dropped off her daughters for a night out with other Royals on Thursday, but is not among the 1,900 guests invited to the Royal Wedding in April


Sarah Ferguson has not been invited to the Royal wedding.

About 1,900 invitations have been sent to family, dignitaries, charity workers and friends of Prince William and Kate Middleton but the Duchess of York was snubbed, royal aides confirmed yesterday.

Friends of 51-year-old Fergie claimed she ‘never expected’ to be asked and would have missed the ceremony anyway owing to ‘private plans overseas’.


She is also understood to have been reluctant to go to the ceremony ‘alone’. As cousins of William, her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are expected to sit at the front of Westminster Abbey while their mother, who divorced Andrew 15 years ago, would have been much further back.

The snub comes after a disastrous 12 months in which the duchess faced £5million debts and tried to sell access to her ex-husband for £27,000 during a newspaper sting, horrifying the Queen.

She spent Christmas Day alone at Andrew’s Windsor home – where she still lives – after holiday plans fell through. She is never invited to join the Queen at Sandringham.

Despite declaring last year that she was ‘doing everything she can’ to stave off bankruptcy, her foreign jaunts have run into double figures.

Last month she was pictured fanning a wad of cash while on a shopping trip on the Caribbean island of St Barts with Robbie Williams’s wife Ayda Field.

And two days later she jetted to the exclusive ski resort of Verbier in Switzerland for a family holiday.

At that stage, Sarah was in the dark as to whether she would be invited to the wedding on April 29, friends said.

She might have hoped that pictures of her surrounded by members of the Royal Family would reinforce her status and help her cause.

But courtiers last night confirmed she has been left off the guest list.

The formal invitations were sent out this week via Royal Mail, St James’s Palace confirmed. Six workers from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office addressed and filled the envelopes.

Among the guests will be a host of ordinary citizens who have worked closely with William’s charities, including teenagers, former drug and alcohol addicts and wounded servicemen for the country’s first ‘people’s wedding’.


Source:Dailymail

Will Andy ever win a Grand Slam? Major questions over Scot's big-match nerve after he blows up for a third time

By Mike Dickson, Tennis Correspondent Reports From Melbourne



We came in the hope of seeing the Grand Slam- winning career of Andy Murray take flight. Sadly, we watched as he laid an egg instead.

Three finals in major tournaments and he has yet to win a set, indeed barely looked like doing so.

He looked further away than ever when going down 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 to his childhood rival, the mightily impressive Novak Djokovic, in the Australian Open final.

There is no disgrace in losing to someone who right now looks the equal of Rafael Nadal, but it should trouble Murray that he could not even lay a glove on a player who he had beaten on their last three meetings.

Most disappointingly of all, he appeared to have learned nothing from this same night 12 months ago when his straight-sets defeat by Roger Federer ended in a deluge of tears.

This time Murray was contrastingly matter-of-fact about the result, entirely in line with his flat response to what was surely his best chance yet of breaking Britain’s near 75-year drought of men’s Grand Slam titles.

From the outset he was too passive, just as he had been against Federer in 2010, missing the chance to get on top of the Serb when he, too, was at his most vulnerable and nervous.

About the only animation we saw was the recalcitrant teenager-type ranting at his box and occasional gesturing to them to calm down. Once Djokovic pounced in the 10th game there was really only one man in it.


Wrapped up in a green wax jacket and brown boots, Andy Murray's girlfriend Kim Sears is all smiles as she walks their dog ahead of his big match with Alejandra Gutierrez, the wife of Andy's brother. A few hours later it was a very different story as the 23-year-old Scot lost in the Australian Open final for the second year running


To the victor, the spoils: Serbia's Novak Djokovic poses for photographers with his Australian Open trophy


Murray walks behind Novak Djokovic as they hold their trophies after the Serb's victory


Thereafter, the 23-year-old Serb was outstanding and some of his baseline defence defied human biology as he did the splits and managed to loop back his opponent’s attempts at winners.

Djokovic was terrific and surely no easier a prospect than Nadal or Federer. But that is a reminder these opportunities may not come around too often for Murray, certainly not often enough for him to fail to turn up.

Let us be clear, however, that this is far from the end of the Scot’s Grand Slam ambitions. He can look at Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl and Goran Ivanisevic as modern examples of players who lost their first three Slam finals (Lendl lost four) and ended up winning — the American and the Czech eight times, the Croat just the once.

It is customary after big matches for the winner to tell the loser that his day will come — Tim Henman often had that ringing in his ears — and Murray’s may come soon, but not until he learns to respond with the proper mindset to the biggest occasions.

Any time you get to the final of a Grand Slam and show the kind of courage he did to win his semi-final, it has not been a bad fortnight, but to achieve the extraordinary you have to come up with something special.

It is hard not to conclude that he suffered from failing to have a coach here who is used to going deep into a Grand Slam — his part-time consultant Alex Corretja, the former world No 2, remaining in Spain.

But the biggest single reason for yesterday’s huge disappointment was the brilliance of Djokovic, who was consistently the best player at this tournament, with his revamped serve to the fore. That was the department in which he outplayed Murray, as well as the relatively flatfooted British

No 1’s traditional forte of defence behind the baseline.

Both players were edgy at the start, but Djokovic was always the more assertive and at 5-4 he noticeably cranked up his intensity, driving deep and clinching the break to 15 when he forced Murray to hit long on the forehand.

That sparked a nightmare 20-minute spell for the Scot who, while his opponent seized the moment, went into meltdown.


Murray was defeated in straight sets by Djokovic, becoming the first player to reach three grand slam finals and not managing to win a single set during any of them


Supporters of Murray in a bar in his hometown of Dunblane react as they see the title bid slip from his grasp


It's all over. In Dunblane, fans of the Scot make their way home after the final


Champagne stays on ice. The bottles on the bar in Dunblane remain unopened as fans of Murray see him lose in the final of the Australian Open


Murray, who could not defuse his opponent’s lethal forehand, stopped the collapse by securing two games at 0-5 and then got his one meaningful break at the start of of the third set.

A missed overhead, one of several, contributed to him getting broken straight back, and although there was an exchange of breaks to keep glimmers of a comeback alive, it never looked like being ‘David Ferrer revisited’.

A final break of service for 5-3 effectively sealed it.

Surprisingly, Djokovic barely celebrated in the immediate aftermath.

Partly it was out of respect for Murray, his friend, but partly it was down to him not having been given much of a contest.It had all been so curiously, disappointingly straightforward.


Murray's mother Judy looks on as she sees her son's title bid in Melbourne slip from his grasp


No need to panic, Murray still has time on his sideINSIGHT: Brad Gilbert, Andy Murray's former coach

Don’t be kidded by Andy Murray’s outwardly composed response to this defeat — I know inside he will be really hurting, even stunned by the result.

My advice would be for him not to panic and, related to that, not to take the extended break he talked about. After having a well-earned rest, get back on the horse and start riding again, because there is still everything to play for.

Andy has lost twice in major finals to Roger Federer and once to Novak Djokovic — on each occasion facing a player ranked above him.

He needs to look not only at Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi as people who also had difficulty opening their Grand Slam tally but also to this year’s women’s champion Kim Clijsters, who lost in four finals before she got going (she has now won her last four).

There is no doubt that winning your first one is the hardest thing to do, but I still maintain that Andy has a window of about eight, maybe 12 tournaments in which to do that. It is not as if this was like the crushing, fourth round exit at Flushing Meadows against Stan Wawrinka.

But I was wrong in predicting that Andy would narrowly shade a victory yesterday. Where I was right was in saying that the real key to the match would involve who took care of their second serve the best.

The statistics, which showed that Novak won 60 per cent on his compared to Andy’s 31 per cent, tell a lot of the story.

That’s a huge difference and, while the British player had a bad serving night, his opponent really hit his spots.

Andy did not move particularly well, either, in contrast to Djokovic, whose overall calm really impressed me.

I knew he was in a special vein of form when he allowed Tomas Berdych, who had been looking pretty special himself, just eight games in the quarter-final, and he carried that on right through the tournament.

For the last six years we have seen Rafael Nadal and Federer finish the season as the top two in the world. After Djokovic’s US Open final appearance and winning here, there can be every expectation he will break up that arrangement this year.

Andy is the worthy world no 4 and the good news is that he can still improve significantly, because there is so much to his game and it was always going to take time, probably longer than with most players, for everything to come together.

I have mentioned his second serve, but I was actually very impressed with it all tournament until the final.

All he needs to do is remember Lendl, and his fellow former charge of mine, Agassi.

The lesson is that by the end of his career Andre had won every Grand Slam there is to win, which should be an inspiration.


Source:Dailymail

Kardashians fail to score a hit for Piers Morgan as ratings are beaten by supermarket documentary

By Daily Mail Reporter



Not such a draw: Less than half a million people tuned it to watch Piers Morgan interview Kim and Kourtney Kardashian on his CNN show on Thursday night


Over 2.1 million tuned in to watch Piers Morgan interview Oprah Winfrey on his CNN debut two weeks ago.

But the British talk show host saw his ratings plummet over 75 per cent from his debut when he interviewed Kim and Kourtney Kardashian on Thursday night.

Rather embarrassingly, it appears more American viewers preferred to watch a behind-the-scenes documentary about supermarkets on a rival cable channel than the reality TV stars giving away yet more information about their private lives.


Just 498,000 tuned in to watch the Kardashians discuss their breasts and Kim's infamous sex tape during the 9pm slot - with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity pulling in 1.87 million on Fox.

In second place was the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC with 983,000 and Supermarkets Inc with 504,000 on CNBC.

The ratings slip suggests the average CNN viewer isn't interested in reality stars like the Kardashians, whose new TV show Kourtney And Kim Take New York attracted 3million viewers to the celebrity-centric cable channel E!

The drop has been noted by some U.S. TV critics, TV presenter Carol Vorderman and Lord Alan Sugar.


King of chat: Morgan's Thursday night ratings were a far cry from his debut two weeks ago


Keeping abreast of the issues: Kim insisted her breasts were real, while Kourtney spoke about having implants 10 years ago


Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin wrote: 'Morgan dropped below half a million viewers Thursday night even with a bunch of crazed half-naked Kardashians sitting at the desk with him. Really. You can't break the half-million mark with Hollywood's most beloved trollops bragging about their boobs?

'(The scoop from Kim: "They're 100 per cent real!" Kourtney, not so much.) And their sex tapes? (Poor Kim says she's embarrassed by hers, though not embarrassed enough to stop talking about it on national television.'

Morgan's old adversary Vorderman wrote on her Twitter page: 'Seems (Jeremy) Clarkson not on Twitter for real. Shame... just found latest CNN Morgan ratings and they are soooo bad, Jeremy would love it.

'And so everyone understands we all go back a long way, indeed I was happy to be around when Jeremy punched Morgan all those years ago.


Drawing a crowd: CNBC's documentary Supermarkets Inc, billed as 'a fascinating look at today's supermarket industry' received more viewers


'Morgan's ratings fallen to 498,000 in 9 days, wiped out - CNN now 4th news network in slot, beaten even by CNBC. Interesting Stephen Fry, Lord Sugar? See for yourselves.'

After Lord Sugar found out the ratings from Vorderman, he began teasing Morgan on Twitter.

He gloated: 'Piersy is this true..? Piers Morgan beaten by CNBC oh dear! I got more ratings on CNBC when they ran UK version of Apprentice a couple of years ago.'

Defending his ratings and teasing Lord Sugar in return, Morgan Tweeted: 'Don't you worry about my ratings Lordy, they're ticking along nicely. You worry about your American ratings, which don't exist.


Twitter feud: Morgan hit back at Lord Alan Sugar's accusations his ratings were falling


'Tell you what I'd REALLY worry about, I just closed the gap by another 2k overnight.

'Hmmm, yes, I remember your Apprentice airing on CNBC...they cancelled it before end of 1st series didn't they Lordy.

'Hurricane Morgan is blowing stronger by the day... Let me explain again Shugs: my show airs to over 300 million people nightly on CNN America and CNN International.

'Right, Biggles, you toddle off in your little plane for a bit - I'm going for breakfast in Beverly Hills.'

Although Morgan scored huge ratings with his debut on January 17 debut, figures have been averaging in the 700,000-800,000 over the past two weeks.

Last Monday, he was in third place with 763,000 tuning in to watch him interview former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Morgan's predecessor Larry King was averaging 657,000 during the last three months of 2010.


Big debut: Morgan's first show on CNN with Oprah Winfrey drew 2.1million viewers


Source:Dailymail

Outrage as picture of Elton John's baby is covered with shield by U.S. supermarket to 'protect children'

By Daily Mail Reporter


-Store claims 'several' shoppers complained about photograph
-Gay rights campaigners furious at move


Protective shield: Elton John and his newborn son were deemed too offensive for young shoppers at a grocery store in Arkansas, U.S.


A U.S. supermarket sparked outrage today after it covered with a 'family shield' a magazine showing a picture of Elton John, his husband and their newborn baby.

The Arkansas store deemed the image of the gay couple and their child, on the front of Us Weekly, to be offensive.

Staff say complaints from shoppers prompted them to cover the magazine with the 'shield' - the same method used to cover pornographic magazines.

The move today triggered fury among gay rights campaigners.


Uncovered: Elton John and his husband of five years David Furnish proudly showed off their baby son Zachary Jackson Levi Furnish John who was born via a surrogate mother on Christmas Day


The magazine cover shows Elton and his husband David Furnish, 48, proudly showing off their baby Zachary Jackson Levi Furnish John who was born on Christmas Day via a surrogate mother.

The Harps grocery store in Mountain Home, Arkansas even wrapped last week's edition of the magazine in a protective plastic shield to stop youngsters flicking through it.

Only the very top of the magazine was visible, with the cover reading: 'Family shield. To protect young Harps shoppers.'

The move has sparked outrage among representatives from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).


Star: Sir Elton joined Chris Evans on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast show this morning
Local resident Jennifer Huddleston took a photo of the shield and posted it on Plixi.


'This was taken at my local grocery store,' she wrote. 'I was shocked and horrified.

'They are saying they need to keep children from seeing it, because it is a gay family.'

Ms Huddleston then tweeted Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin, Ellen DeGeneres, The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the ACLU and a number of other gay rights activists.

The picture immediately sparked controversy across the blogosphere.


Proud fathers: But photos of Elton John and partner David Furnish 'offended' shoppers in the U.S.


But a company spokesperson defended the shield, saying Harps bosses reacted in response to 'several' customer complaints at that particular store.

He insisted the move was 'in no way our opinion on this issue', adding, 'we do not have an opinion on this issue.'

But others were quick to complain about the shield, with many urging a boycott of the chain.

Even international news outlets carried the story.

Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail wrote: 'Heaven forbid your seven-year-old, while waiting in line with you at the grocery store checkout, be exposed to the gays.'


And British paper the Sun wrote: 'Either Elton's baby is in some way offensive or there's some serious homophobia going on here.'

After receiving a plethora of complaints, the store management have taken action and un-censored the magazine.

'In this case our store manager received some complaints and, as has been our custom, placed the shield over the cover of the magazine', said Kim Eskew, president of Harps Food Stores Inc.

'When we began receiving complaints at our corporate office, we reivewed the magazine in question, removed the shield and are selling the magazine in all our locations today without any shield', Ms Eskew added.

The shields are usually placed over adult magazines with racy covers.

'Our true intention is not to offend anyone in our stores and this incident happened at just one of our 65 locations, which when brought to our attention we reversed', Ms Eskew said in a written statement.

On its blog, a GLAAD spokesman said the shield should ‘never have been put up in the first place’, adding: ‘Obviously, someone felt that shoppers should not have to look at this smiling, happy couple and their newborn baby.’

Just last week Elton John publicly bemoaned feeling like a 'second-class citizen' in the U.S. because of his sexuality and said he was 'fed-up' about it.

During a performance at a Beverly Hills fundraiser to help the legal challenge to California's gay marriage back Elton said: 'As I get older, I get more angry about it'.

Elton and his husband David Furnish have been together for 17 years and were married in a lavish ceremony in 2005.

He recently shared how he is coping with life with a new baby.

'Fatherhood is fantastic', he said. 'It's been the most wonderful thing that's happened to me after meeting David'.

He said that being a dad is 'surprisingly relaxing'.

'This little soul that you're feeding, changing, bathing and telling bedtime stories to is a blank canvas', Elton shared.

'And all it needs is love and nurturing. When he gets to talking and running around, I will probably feel a little different.'



Source:Dailymail

When looks can kill

Far from making us happier, disturbing new research shows plastic surgery can lead to self-loathing, disappointment, and even suicide

By John Naish



Insecure: Laura Pillarella became trapped in a vicious cycle of surgery


Laura Pillarella was hugely disappointed the first time she had ­plastic surgery. The naturally-attractive, but insecure, young woman had hoped the procedures to remove the bags under her eyes and insert a chin implant would improve not only her looks, but also her life. They didn’t.

‘When the bandages came off, I was disappointed,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t ­beautiful — just different. It wasn’t enough.’

So Laura planned another operation ... and then another. For the next ­decade she became trapped in a vicious cycle of surgery, dissatisfaction and more surgery.


Finally, after her 15th procedure, a plastic surgeon told her the real ­problem with her looks was that she had had excessive amounts of surgery. It was too much for Laura to bear.

After ­spending more than £40,000 ­trying to be ­beautiful, she seriously thought about taking her own life.

‘I had my suicide all worked out. I was going to rent a room in a hotel, get some sleeping tablets and wash them down with red wine,’ says the American ­personal trainer and author.

‘I wasn’t going to leave a suicide note. People would know why I’d killed myself. One look at my face said it all — I’d made myself look ­hideously ugly. My face was lopsided, my nose was too skinny, my lips were ­distorted and my chin was crooked.’

Laura is typical of many cosmetic ­surgery patients who are left profoundly depressed by their appearance ­afterwards.


Naturally pretty: Laura, pictured before her surgery, had procedures to remove the bags under her eyes and insert a chin implant


New research shows that behind the ‘easy glamour’ of nip’n’tuck lies a silent epidemic of ­disappointment, leading to a wave of suicides.

Women who undergo plastic ­surgery have a much higher risk of killing ­themselves, say experts in the journal, Current Psychiatry Reports.

Their conclusions were based on five large-scale, independent ­studies, which found that the suicide rate is up to three times higher in women who have had breast implants.

The toll is not only restricted to ­suicides — cosmetic surgery patients had a three-times higher rate of death due to self-destructive acts, such as binge-drinking, drug ­overdoses and reckless driving.

Psychological damage related to plastic surgery is ‘a critically neglected area’, said ­researchers from the International ­Epidemiology Institute in the U.S..


Meanwhile, another study found that in eight out of ten cosmetic ­surgery practices, former patients had ­developed ­post-traumatic stress.

Surgeons were seeing at least as many psychological side effects as physical complications.

‘Disappointment, anxiety and depression were the most frequently seen psychological problems,’ says the report, published in the journal, Plastic And Reconstructive Surgery.

‘The next frontier for the specialty is to improve patients’ emotional and psychological results.’

It’s a problem not just confined to women — indeed, men are thought more likely to be distraught at the outcome of their cosmetic surgery, even if they have had a ‘technically good result’, say researchers.

Last year, in journal Annals Of ­Plastic ­Surgery, Melbourne ­University researchers advocated increased ­psychological screening before ­surgery and support for patients afterwards.

Such help was sadly never offered to Colin Phillips, 62. In 2009, an inquest in Cardiff heard how he hanged himself in a wood, distraught at how his third facelift had gone.


On a knife edge: Laura in 1997 after having work done to her chin, eyes and lips (left) and in 1998 (right) after having a rhinoplasty


Phillips, a retired managing ­director, was ‘fanatical’ about his looks and had twice before undergone ­plastic surgery on his face.

But he felt his appearance had been butchered after a third procedure by a Harley Street surgeon and refused to leave his £600,000 home.

His wife, Janice, 62, said: ‘After the first facelift he felt tremendous.’

But her husband’s original ­surgeon refused to operate on him a third time, so he searched the ­internet for a Harley Street doctor who would.

The mother-of-two said: ‘He was pinning his hopes on having a ­maxi-facelift. But after the operation he would look in the mirror shaking.’

A month later, Mr Phillips, a ­grandfather, took an ­overdose of drugs and was admitted to hospital. After being discharged, he made two other failed suicide attempts.

Finally, eight months after the­ ­operation, Mr Phillips killed himself.


As the demand for cosmetic ­surgery grows, such post-operative distress can only increase, say experts. ­

A study carried out for the Girl Guides recently found almost half of secondary school girls said they plan to have plastic surgery.

‘Girls and young women tell us they are finding it hard to accept their appearance, and it is starting at a much earlier age than we had ­previously thought,’ says Nicola ­Grinstead, of Girlguiding UK.

Experts such as ­Professor Nichola ­Rumsey, a director of the UK ­Centre For Appearance Research, fear the ­underlying ­psychological issues that ­trigger the desire for plastic surgery are not being addressed.

People seeking cosmetic surgery often believe that it will solve ­dissatisfactions with their lives.

Laura ­Pillarella, the woman driven to plan suicide after 15 ­unsatisfactory procedures, said: ‘I was manipulating my face to build a new self. I was lonely as a child. My ­parents split up when I was six. Mum would often say giving birth to me and my brothers had ruined her looks and body.

‘I was distant from my dad and lacked emotional security so I was ­trying to boost my self-esteem. But plastic surgery never worked and each ­operation ­strengthened my quest to fix myself.’

Mercifully, her suicide plans stopped when her brother asked her to speak at his wedding. Suddenly, she says, she felt valued and began, slowly, to realise her unhappiness came from emotional problems.

Now aged 41, she has written a book charting her experiences, Chasing Beauty: My Cosmetic ­Surgery Takeover. ‘If I had my time again,’ she says, ‘I wouldn’t have surgery. I’d have therapy.’


Experience: Laura, 41, has now written a book charting her experiences, titled Chasing Beauty: My Cosmetic ­Surgery Takeover


It’s a message that Charles Nduka, an NHS plastic surgeon, wishes many patients could hear.

‘We are seeing a lot more people with ­psychological problems ­seeking plastic surgery,’ says Nduka, who works at the Queen ­Victoria ­Hospital in East ­Grinstead, West Sussex.

There are two types of these patients, he says. Those who have pre-existing psychological issues with their appearance, such as body dysmorphic disorder, and should be having psychiatric help rather than surgery; and young women who are perfectly ­attractive, but have been made deeply unhappy with their bodies by ­constantly comparing themselves with airbrushed ­models.

‘Often, these young women have a small amount of breast asymmetry, which causes them anxiety due to the ­“perfection” they see in ­magazines. But 90 per cent of women have a degree of ­asymmetry.’

Unrealistic expectations of ­surgical results are another ­growing problem, says Nduka.

‘Ethical ­surgeons spend a lot of time ­talking to patients about their motivations for surgery and what they will achieve,’ says Nduka, who runs the not-for-profit ­website safercosmeticsurgery.co.uk. He increasingly finds ­himself referring patients to psychologists.

Indeed, one survey found that surgeons refer about 20 per cent of patients to psychologists due to unrealistic expectations — they may believe it will improve their lives dramatically by ­getting them the glamorous job or the partner they want.


But Nduka warns that often patients never go to the ­psychologist and seek out a less scrupulous cosmetic surgeon.

Such patients can get caught in a costly and traumatic spiral of serial surgery, says Professor ­Rumsey.

‘Vulnerable ­customers are initially pleased, but when the euphoria wears off, their ­disappointment with their looks returns. So they have another procedure.

‘The problem is exacerbated by hard-sell incentives that are offered by some non-mainstream ­providers. Some even offer ­discounts for ­people who want more ­operations,’ she says.

Nduka says many UK clinics do not follow good practice and is worried by the ‘buy one get one free’ (BOGOF) offers and ­aggressive marketing that ‘plays on people’s insecurity’.

‘Often in these places, you meet a salesperson before a surgeon. One lady I saw went in for a consultation about eye wrinkles and the ­salesperson said: “Never mind your eyes, what about those wrinkles around your neck?”’

Three years ago, the British ­Association of Aesthetic Plastic ­Surgeons (BAAPS) launched a ­campaign to halt bad practice, such as bonus cards and BOGOF offers.

However, the association — which represents about a third of ­cosmetic surgeons — is not a ­regulatory body and has no powers to take action.

Mr Nduka wants to see health warnings on overseas treatment. ‘Patients who end up going abroad only get one follow-up ­appointment. But they need more than this. ’

This is also an issue in the UK, as doctors can set ­themselves up as plastic surgeons without being properly trained.

Nigel Mercer, president of BAAPS, says: ‘In Britain you can call ­yourself something — such as a facial plastic surgeon — and need no ­relevant qualifications or training. In this respect, we are worse than ­anywhere else in Europe. Terrible things are happening to patients.’

BAAPS and the Care Quality ­Commission (the independent health care regulator) are ­drawing up Europe-wide standards of safe practice and regulation.

Mercer says: ‘Patients ought to be able to get referrals to good clinical psychologists after the event if someone is having problems. It is very important.’

Chasing Beauty: My Cosmetic Surgery Takeover, published by ­Create Space, £18.95.


Source:Dailymail

I'm 58... and having twins: Single ex-barrister spent years trying to have a baby and now she's pregnant, thanks to donor sperm and eggs

By Helen Weathers



Mum-to-be Carole Hobson: 'I'm just looking forward to meeting my babies'


At 29 weeks pregnant with twins, Carole Hobson is — like most expectant first-time mothers — a mixture of ­nervous excitement and apprehension. This, she admits, has been a difficult pregnancy, and it will be a relief when her babies are born, hopefully healthy and well.

Carole has suffered severe morning sickness, painful swelling of her legs and, most recently, dangerously high blood pressure. This week she was hospitalised for five days, and she has been warned by medical staff that the twins — not due until February 23 — could arrive any day.

She has been injected with steroids to help her babies’ lungs mature if they emerge ­prematurely, and she is taking medication to lower her blood pressure in the hope that she can carry them to 34 weeks, when doctors plan a ­Caesarean delivery.


The risk to her own health is, however, one she is fully prepared to take in order to realise her dream of having children; a dream that has so far cost her more than £20,000.

But that is by no means the most surprising part of the story. For Carole is 58 years old — an age when most women are well past the menopause.

And she is single. Her twins, a boy and a girl, have no genetic link to her whatsoever. They were conceived using donor eggs and sperm.

Oh, and her babies will be mixed race. In her determination to have children, Carole travelled from the Home Counties to the Ukraine, back to London, to Cyprus, and finally to India where her fifth attempt at IVF proved successful.

The donor eggs came from a 24-year-old Indian woman, while the donor sperm came from a ­Scandinavian engineering graduate.

This is, by any reckoning, a truly astonishing story of modern motherhood — and one that raises profoundly troubling ethical questions about the extremes to which some women are willing to go in their bid to have children.

When Carole gives birth, she will be younger by four years than the oldest woman in Britain to become a mother — Patricia Rashbrook, who in 2006 gave birth to a son at the age of 62. She will even be four months younger than the oldest woman to give birth to twins — Janet Bosher, a former nursery teacher who gave birth to twins in 2002 at the age of 58.


But she is the first to undertake such extremes as a single mother, and has taken some deeply controversial ­decisions along the way.

Not that Carole sees any problem with her circumstances.

‘I have absolutely no doubt about my capability of loving two children who are not genetically mine,’ she says, in her first exclusive interview. ‘If I did, I would never have gone ahead.

‘I am absolutely thrilled to be ­pregnant with twins, and I can’t wait to see my children for the first time.

‘Age, to me, is just a number. Some people reach 50, just give up and wait to die: but not me. I spent my 20s and 30s trying to avoid getting pregnant, but in my late 40s and 50s I felt ­incomplete without a child. I want to seize every opportunity that medical science can offer me, as a woman.

‘Some people might accuse me of being selfish, or going against nature, but isn’t it going against nature to ­perform heart surgery or transplants? I’m no more selfish than any woman who wants a family.

‘People ask me: “How will you cope with twins?” or “How will you feel when they start school and you are 63?” These things do not concern me at all.

‘Yes, I am sure it will be hard at times, but I’m fit and healthy, and I fully intend to enjoy and cherish my babies.’

Nor, it seems, does Carole have any moral or ethical issue with Western women paying for donor eggs from women from poorer countries.

‘That is just the way the world is,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘If women in Britain are not donating eggs, then you have to take a more global view.

‘As for my children being mixed race, we now live in a multi-ethnic society where it is simply not an issue.

‘I believe a child’s identity comes from being loved and knowing themselves, rather than skin tone. When they are older, I shall take them to their countries of origin so they can learn about their cultures.

‘If there are issues, there are donor conception networks which can give advice and help.

‘I’m not pretending it won’t be hard at times, but, as a parent, my role is to love and help these two babies to become happy, independent individuals.’


Healthy: A hospital scan shows the promising growth of Carole Hobson's baby girl


What makes Carole’s decision even more remarkable, perhaps, is her ­profession. A qualified barrister and trained social worker, she works for a national agency supporting vulnerable children through the court process. She has witnessed first-hand the ­devastating effects parents can wreak on their children, either inadvertently through ill-health, lack of maturity or ignorance, or, in the worst cases, deliberately.

This, however, she says has given her insight into the emotional and physical needs of children. And while she accepts that in an ideal world that means ­having a loving father, too, she does not consider it essential.

‘Of course, fathers are important to children; but better no father than one who causes emotional or physical ­damage to a child,’ she says.

‘Through my work, I have seen what some parents can do to their ­children. On my side, I have maturity and wisdom.’

Perhaps so, but others will no doubt see her decision as reckless. So how did she come to take such desperate ­measures to conceive?

A headteacher’s daughter, and the eldest of four children, Carole grew up in Lancashire but has settled in Kent.

Her three younger brothers are all married with children, and are what she describes as ‘very traditional, very conventional’.


Indeed, one of them told her she was ‘crazy’ when she announced her ­decision late in life to try for a child, even telling Carole that her babies ‘would be no relatives of mine’.

‘Some members of my family have been shocked, but I am sure they will come round once they get over the ­initial embarrassment,’ says Carole, whose elderly parents are both 81.

‘My mother is concerned about my health, but, along with my sisters-in-law, has been very supportive, and we all just hope the twins arrive safely.’

Carole, who has never married, admits that when she was younger she never felt maternal. At 38, she fell pregnant accidentally with twins, but miscarried. She was sad, but also thinks it was for the best because it was ‘the wrong time’ and her relationship not solid enough.

It wasn’t until her late 40s, when she realised time had run out to have a baby naturally, that it suddenly hit her what she’d missed out on.

Involved in a long-distance, on-off, 11-year relationship with a geologist, she asked if he would be the father to her children, fertilising donor eggs through IVF.

‘He wasn’t exactly horrified when I asked him, but he wasn’t keen either because of the logistics of our ­relationship. He was away a lot, ­working abroad.’

‘Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that this was something I could go ahead with on my own. Once you can pass the psychological barrier that this child will not be biologically yours, then you can also accept that the father can be a donor, too.’

Not surprisingly, the relationship with her boyfriend petered out not long after as she embarked on her quest to have a child without him.


Expectant: Carole Hobson's babies are due on Feburary 23 2011


It is fair to say that Carole, a single-minded character, went to remarkable lengths to achieve her goal.

It was in 2007, aged 55, that she first travelled to a clinic in the Ukraine ­seeking help to conceive using Eastern European donors, but was refused treatment when a scan appeared to show a complication with her kidneys.

After further tests in Britain showed her kidney function was normal, she then approached a Harley Street ­fertility clinic, where she underwent a whole barrage of health tests before being referred to another clinic in Cyprus for the IVF, because of a ­shortage of egg donors in Britain.

‘I had two cycles, both of which failed, and then, once I turned 56, the London clinic refused to treat me any more because 55 was their cut-off age,’ says Carole.

‘So I went back to the clinic in Cyprus independently for a further two attempts. Each time it failed, I felt heartbroken. But once you get on the IVF treadmill, it’s so hard to get off. It’s a bit like gambling: you keep thinking “Perhaps next time, I’ll be lucky”.’

So in one last throw of the dice, Carole took the decision to fly to Mumbai to visit the Deccan fertility clinic, after learning they accepted patients up to the age of 63.

In recent years, India has, ­controversially, pushed medical and ethical boundaries by treating much older, childless women, despite ­concerns over life expectancy.

In 2008, Rajo Devi Lohan gave birth to a daughter at the age of 70, but has never recovered from ­complications. The same year, 70-year-old Omkari Panwar became the oldest woman in the world to give birth to twins.

Neither of these women is believed to have been treated by the clinic Carole attended.

‘From my research, I could see that clinics in India seemed to have very good success rates, and it was also much cheaper than British clinics,’ says Carole, who liaised by email with the clinic for a year until she was satisfied with their methods.


IVF: A scientist screens sperm for use in in vitro fertilisation


She paid £3,000 for her IVF in India. This included the fee that was paid to the two donors she selected from the clinic’s books.

The egg came from a 24-year-old Indian mother-of-two, whom Carole selected from an option of eight ­possible women she was shown details and photographs of. The sperm came from an anonymous 6ft tall Scandinavian engineering graduate. She chose him because — unlike the previous sperm donor she’d used — he shared her blood group, which she hoped would increase her chances of success.

These are the only details that Carole knows about her future children’s genetic parentage, although she says she was impressed by the clinic’s detailed medical analysis of the quality of sperm and eggs.

She admits, however, that British doctors she has visited were horrified over her treatment abroad. They were alarmed at the much higher dose of hormones prescribed by Indian doctors, warning of the risk of deep vein thrombosis (potentially fatal blood clots).

They were equally disturbed by Carole’s agreement to have six ­fertilised embryos implanted in her womb to increase the chances of ­success — a practice long considered high-risk in Britain.

‘When I went to my GP for the pregnancy test on my return to ­Britain, he was visibly shocked when I told him,’ explains Carole.

‘I’d agreed to the implantation of six embryos because I doubted any of them would work anyway. The night before the pregnancy test, I couldn’t sleep, and when it came back positive I couldn’t believe it.

‘It was a bit frightening, and a vision went through my mind of six cots — but when I went for my first scan on July 5, it showed three embryos. The other three had not taken.’

Pregnant with triplets, Carole ­realised the enormity of her situation. The cool-headed manner in which she decided to deal with it, did, she admits, upset some of her friends.

At 13 weeks, she opted for a selective reduction, whereby a needle was passed into one of the embryo’s hearts and injected with a chemical to stop it beating.

‘The worst part was waiting for the procedure, because I’d made up my mind at six weeks,’ she says. ‘I knew that if I tried to carry all three babies, the risk of disability was much higher, as was the risk of prematurity and the risk of losing them all.

‘I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope with three severely disabled children, who might need 24-hour care or be unable to lead independent lives. Everyone wants a healthy baby, not because they are selfish, but for the sake of the child.

‘A few of my friends could not understand or accept why I wouldn’t want to try to keep all three, but it is not a decision I have regretted.’


At 20 weeks, Carole found out the sex of her babies and was delighted to discover she was expecting a son and a daughter. She has already chosen the names Matthew and Freida, but for the moment has nicknamed them ‘Kicky one’ and ‘Kicky two’ because she feels them vigorously kicking each other in the womb.

‘And I’m sure that will continue after they are born,’ she adds wryly.

Carole has nothing but praise for the NHS, which has been supporting her through this pregnancy. She is under the care of the South-East Neo-Natal Unit based at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham.

Without doubt, though, there are some who will question whether the NHS should pick up the bill for a high-risk pregnancy conceived and paid for privately abroad.

Carole prefers to concentrate on the positives, despite the mixed reception from friends, family and medical staff.

‘How you cope as a parent is not about how old you are, and I think my chances are perhaps better than an immature 16-year-old,’ she says.

Having waited so long and spent so much money on her quest to have children, Carole, rather surprisingly, does not intend to be a stay-at-home mum. As a single parent, she will need her salary to support them, so is planning to return to full-time employment following ­maternity leave.

She has no husband or partner to fall back on for emotional or ­financial support, or, indeed, to look after the twins should anything ­happen to her.

‘You only have to look at people like Jade Goody to know that young mothers with children can die early, so nothing in this life is predictable,’ says Carole.

‘But I have three brothers with children who, I hope, will play an active role in their lives and step in should anything happen to me.’

In January, a Spanish male au pair will arrive to help out at her three-bedroomed home in Kent, doing the chores and walking Carole’s two dogs, Milly and Lucy, leaving her free to concentrate on the babies.

‘I have a lot of stamina,’ she says, confident that she can cope with the exhausting, sleepless nights. ‘As the eldest of four children, I was Mummy’s little helper with my brothers.

‘I have spent my whole career ­working with children. I’m sure the next few years will be jolly difficult at times, but rewarding and ­enjoyable too.

‘For now, I’m just looking forward to meeting my babies.’



Source:Dailymail