Royal style and gossips: gowns and crowns but please no frowns!

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Just in the nick of time! Clothes and light-hearted gossip only please...

Honestly, if I was pregnant and shattered after a full-on year, I'd not be staying in a house with two small sugar- and tinsel-crazed loons and a baby either . No matter how big the house might be... we all know how good small children are at infiltrating the defences of guest bedrooms and the ungodly hours at which they rise at the best of times! I'd be wanting to savour my last ever relaxing Christmas morning!

Did anyone except the Mail even say they'd be staying at Anmer in the first place? I noticed they recently "revealed" that Doria won't be at Sandringham for Christmas after all. No one but them ever said she would be!

@QueenOfTheAndals very true there will be lots of smaller events and charities that will be getting a lot less royal attention in the future.

I mentioned it before but a family member works for a charity William is a patron of while talking at an event. It turns out William is anti patronage as an idea. He thinks it's a bit out dated and instead of putting your name on a charity and then doing nothing it would be better to really give a few charities a year full attention and focus (I doubt that's how he said word for word but that's how it was told to me). So if not with Charles certainly in Williams reign there will be lots of changes.

itswinetime I think William has a fair point, to be honest... the charity I worked for had a v involved patron and it's genuinely useful to have her on board, but if it was just a name to stick on the headed paper, is it worth it?

They can certainly be a big help - Kate has done a fair bit for EACH, which is a local charity to her. But equally, if it's just a case of turning up every so often, with all the work that sort of visit entails for the charity, you have to wonder what the point is. I think we've moved beyond just being impressed by the royal connection now, we want more for our money, which will mean fewer charities but more engagement with the chosen organisations.

Spudlet I completely agree the Queen is patron to a stupid amount of charities there's no way she can actively help all of them. Times have changed and I think a royal being Involved in one charity for a year say would have a much bigger inmost than a photo in an office and a name on your letter head!

That's true. HM is patron of the organisation I work for but once she goes then who knows? Without being too specific, it seems like the sort of thing Harry would be into, given his other interests, so fingers crossed!

I like the idea of taking a charity on for a year - almost like a mentoring relationship. For smaller charities especially that could have huge value, helping them to build a few networks, get some media coverage, have some events.

It would be very different to how things are now, but it could work.

So Meghan & Harry are staying at Sandringham, if they had stayed at Anmer the Mail would have said the Queen didn’t want them & it’s because they were out of favour with the Queen. Now they can say that there is a rift with W & K. It’s ridiculous.

Just because they are SILs doesn’t mean they have to be best friends.

I don’t think I understood my SILS for at least 3-5 years nor they me. We get on brilliantly now but a relationship takes time to grow. I can tell them anything & they me. But that’s taken years of give & take & understanding, not 5 minutes!

Dh & I married fairly quickly also & came from very different backgrounds. BIL told dh to think carefully & I don’t blame him. I think if William did say the same to Harry it came from the same place as my BIL.

Well I’m interested in Want2beSupermum’s lifestyle and experiences and any knowledge that isn’t just available on the alternative media websites. As I think I’ve mentioned previously the was talk of people being visited with NDA’s but it seems funny that the Markles haven’t signed one! Is it just speculation or a case of no smoke without fire. I too have reservations mainly because even Doria didn’t have a friend or family member accompanying her to the wedding. I think it’s strange behaviour. MM is, however, stylish, expensively dressed and she wears it well.

Who was it asking about pictures of PW holding babies? This is an excellent pic from when George was a baby!

I've just fallen down a bit of a pinterest rabbot hole actually. I'm a little shocked (naively so) by hoe many pap shots there are of George as a toddler, out and about with his family. I really, really don't blame the Cambridges for being protective and perhaps a bit prickly towards the press - I would be very upset by the intrusion.

Thank you, Curly for your apt points. Also the pictures! I love the Phillips/Tindall children looking like they have fun.
On the whole, a slimmed down monarchy is the best idea, and maybe William and Harry and their spouses will just have to step up more. Although I do think we'll be seeing Princess Anne at sewage works/municipal waste units etc for a good few years yet. In outfits purchased c. 1983!

@user1457017537
Oh jeepers user. While other posters are probably sighing ‘Thank god somebody FINALLY said it’ and just continue on with the purpose of this thread you chime in with that. This is a thread about Royal Style and Gossip, NOT about any old random poster who wants to highjack it with their own tales. PM Supermum and ask her what you will or even better request she start an AMA (as I tried to subtly suggest on a previous thread) but PLEASE can we leave this thread for its intended purpose. As you were.

Well the older generation are certainly putting the younger ones to shame re those figures. William and Harry seem quite lethargic in comparison.

I think they will still need Anne, Sophie & co for a while until the Cambridge children are old enough - so that’s another 20 years at least. Who knows what the state of the monarchy will be then anyway!

@CurlyWurlyTwirly

You warned me about the DM link,but I still went ahead and clicked [santa] The whole article was an extended W&K v H&M (or the 'Harkles') as a commenter called them.

Lots of repeated snide and negative comparisons between the two SILS - 'Kate hasn't put a foot wrong', 'In comparison, Kate's was executed perfectly.'

Can you imagine a world in which you have to be BFF (as defined by DM) with your SIL less than 6 months onto your marriage OR ELSE?

Wasn't someone saying that that's how Anne is with Save the Children? Up to her neck in it on a monthly basis?

So maybe we should call it "The Anne Model".

I agree he has a point, but it does mean massive favouritism experienced by the charities lucky enough to be picked.

At the moment smaller charities have a chance of being picked up by a Royal. If the Royals only did 5 each but really became involved, that chance would evaporate.

BTW, I can't post pics, anyone else? So annoying on a thread like this!

Yes, Sophie can still mop up the ones that are less glamorous and slightly further afield!
We should remember that much of this is not exactly arduous, and as Ken Wharfe said in his book, not quite the same as a regular person's working day.

Well the older generation are certainly putting the younger ones to shame re those figures. William and Harry seem quite lethargic in comparison.

But the older generation are the children of the monarch. W&H are the grandchildren. No doubt they'll step up a bit more once their father is king. Also, have Anne and Edward always done as many engagements as this or did they do less when their children were younger?

And perhaps HM is happy for her grandchildren to concentrate on their families for now, as she knows it's an opportunity she didn't really have.

On the note of Queen Anne & miscarriages my consultant thinks she had antiphospholipid (blood clotting disorder). I have it but was diagnosed after a few miscarriages.

It runs in my family (which we didn’t know ar the time). It set off tor me a chain of diagnosis's of several autoimmune diseases & led to me being able to have children. Unfortunately they’ve inherited it also.

Anyway enough about me. I’ve been googling the Queen at the fashion show. Anna Wintour for once looks in awe!

Yes, I'd prefer if we could keep to the subject in hand.

I don't think Anne, Sophie et al are about to go anywhere yet - they've got decades left in them, surely! And obviously William isn't even the official heir yet, never mind King. I do think there may be a shakeup when that does eventually happen, although that said, if he's as old as his father is going to be, he may well become more conservative in bis views and less likely to change things (or the long wait will have made him all the more radical, of course!).

It's going to be interesting anyway, and possibly even a bit traumatic, after the length of HMQs reign and the stability and continuity of that. When the Guardian did that long article about the plans for the Queen's death one of the lines in the article was about how people would cry even if they didn't expect to - I think that will be true, actually.

It's good that they can focus on their young families while they have the chance. Possibly HM regrets that she couldn't do the same (speculation).
Jewels! I saw my jeweller patient yesterday and he told me that the Royals have the best pearls he's ever seen, including very rare pearls with a slightly gold sheen that appear to glow. Sigh.

It must be awful to know that the job you’ve spent your life training for can only come about upon the death of a loved one.

In tribute to our Sophie & featuring Max

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.townandcountrymag.com/style/fashion-trends/gmp22663499/sophie-countess-wessex-fashion/

Yes @IPromiseIWontBeNaughty and I've heard that's why HM never makes much of her anniversary and kept even the day she became the longest-reigning monarch very low key. The only reason she's reached that milestone is because George VI died so young. I'm sure she'd have happily traded the record for s few more years with her father.

Queen yes concentrating on their families for over 200 days a year, wish my two sons had that luxury but they have to work. Also extreme privilege with no mortgages, staff, nannies and chauffeurs. My heart bleeds