Times article today

[MrsLeonFarrell]

This is a blatant being request for an archive link for The Times article about Catherine and Meghan called an insiders view.

Can anyone help?

Interesting article. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I agree with PP, the info on how royals interact with their staff was insightful. The accompanying photos as well. Staff holding an umbrella over their head while getting wet themselves. Helping them get their boots off. Wiping their sunglasses. I can't help thinking I'd find it strange.

Do you think for Catherine (as a British person) there would have been a natural deference to the royal family (and understanding of their role in the life, governance and history of the nation - even down to our quainter customs like sitting down to the queen’s speech at Christmas). To Meghan it must have seemed somewhat outdated and bizarre. I got the same feeling when I went to an event at a Masonic lodge once… it all seemed slightly surreal/silly.

I’m sure everyone was well aware that the RF and its customs etc would have been alien to Meghan. That’s why she was offered mentoring by various people and a whole folder of paperwork on the subject. None of which she made use of apparently 🤷‍♀️

that's just normal for people even charles.
and me
and you probably

Interesting article. Thanks for posting/archiving.

Seems quite even-handed about bad behaviour all round and it's satisfying to see the much denied rumours about Willy's bad temper confirmed. Interesting that the notoriously touchy St. Anne has been left entirely unscathed.

Harold comes out of it surprisingly well although that pic of him having his boots removed was quite a show-stopper in all the wrong ways.

Rachel seemingly needs to grow a filter or two and just stop with random hugs.

Quite an even handed article on both Meghan and Kate. I’d say less even handed about Charles, William and Harry imo.

That’s a very interesting article. Thank you for enabling access to it.

I did wonder whether there will be more about the older royals in the actual book. Maybe they chose the younger ones for the article to sell it? I can't believe that there aren't a million stories about Andrew being a prat to staff.

That’s not just royals though. I watched the footage of the ceremony for the re-opening of Notre Dame late last year. It was pouring with rain in Paris and all the VIPs were accompanied by aides holding umbrellas to protect them from the weather as they walked from the car drop off area to the covered foyer outside the Cathedral to greet the Macrons. Plenty of the politicians ignored their umbrella holder. William was actually one of the few who thanked the woman carrying his as he reached the entrance.

Anyway, it is an interesting article. I think most people in it - family, courtiers,married ins - come across and living and working in a really intense and frankly dysfunctional dynamic, and they are all massively institutionalised. As senior married-ins Kate and Meghan’s contrasting approaches are discussed, and I suspect readers will feel more sympathetic to one than the other depending on their own likely approach to that kind of situation.

Really interesting article.

I felt a bit sorry for William and the piggy back bit. So weird. I do wonder if both he and Harry have some odd Millennial amnesia around their childhoods. I swear I have seen pictures of Diana giving her children piggy backs.

It was kind to both Catherine and Meghan . Catherine must have the patience of a saint and Meghan, I can understand wanting to change things, but she also must be pretty patient with Harry. Saying someone is like the Prince Regent from Blackadder is really insulting. I think it probably passes over the heads of a lot of people, but eek.

The photo they use of KC under the umbrella, he's wielding a spade. Camilla is holding her own umbrella.

I call it “ a breath of fresh air-head”.

I think they must be misremembering some things - like Harry saying he could never ride a bike with his father - cue several father/son bike pics.

And there are quite a few old pics that came out during those documentaries about the Queen and the personal family footage and photos which show Charles as quite a physical hands on playing type of person - first with his young cousins, then with William and Harry’s generation, and Camilla has said that he’s the sort of Grandpa that gets down on the floor with the grandkids to play with them.

Maybe he only lets his hair down in certain situations like in the privacy of Balmoral etc - I don’t think Meghan spent much time hanging out with the wider family socially so maybe she missed the moments when everything was less formal.

Yeah there’s definitely photos of Diana giving William a piggyback. But this article said he’s specially talking about Charles, not Diana. Not sure why Catherine had to show him how to give a piggy back, unless they are specifically talking about how to carry the kids on his shoulders rather than on their back?

www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/royals/prince-william-heartbreaking-childhood-admission-kate/

Yes I suspect if Meghan had spent a few years going to Balmoral she would have seen a different side to the family. However she is not a hunting shooting fishing type and doesn’t like country pursuits. I suspect she would have been bored rigid. Meghans background is just so totally different from Harry’s. One of these days he will tire of her world and there won’t be any way back. Perhaps the goldfish bowl he’s in now is preferable to him to the goldfish bowl he was in with the RF, but as his children grow up it may lose its appeal. His children will have such a different upbringing to him in every way he may struggle to relate to them and end up being as awkward a father as his own was to him.

Even if it seems weird, you don't ride roughshod, or mock, other people's traditions and customs. Especially if you're the new kid on the block with absolutely no understanding of said traditions and customs. That would obviously be incredibly rude.

She who laughs last laughs longest though. If senior staff were in fact snooty about Kate to start with, they must be falling over backwards to please her now. If she pulls the plug, the whole thing goes down

It's a very interesting article, and I agree extremely even handed. I'd go as far as to say I think quite generous towards Meghan and her intentions.

The hugging thing is a good example, which is described simply as a clash of cultures and Meghan finding it hard that the RF are so formal with each other. And yes, it is, but actually it's also incredibly insensitive and frankly ill mannered to continue trying to hug someone every time you meet them (as described she was doing with William) when they're visibly uncomfortable.

And examples like that are littered throughout the piece. I don't blame her at all for finding the RF weird, but it just comes across as supremely arrogant that rather than trying to understand and adapt to how things worked, she just tried to force her ways upon them, regardless of how they felt about it.

And by the sounds of it, she did indeed rile Harry up and hugely stir up his sense of bitterness and anger over being the spare.

It's not a favourable article towards Charles or William in particular, and the photo of Harry having his boots removed for him by a close protection officer just makes me cringe.

'but actually it's also incredibly insensitive and frankly ill mannered to continue trying to hug someone every time you meet them (as described she was doing with William) when they're visibly uncomfortable.'

Indeed. Imagine the uproar if it had been a male member of the rf repeatedly hugging a woman, whether the woman liked it or not. If you're not a hugger, someone repeatedly invading your personal space, and intimating that, because you don't like hugging people you're cold and unfeeling, makes you feel incredibly uncomfortable, and forced into intimacy you don't want.

Quite a few posters have picked the bits of the article they believe with and run with them, so I’ve picked the bit I’ve believed of most of the royal family members generally.

“Protocol means suits must be pressed and laid out after a period of consultation the night before; shoes must be polished, ties chosen. Baths must be run at precisely the same time each day and both King Charles and the Prince of Wales, Prince William, are prone to tantrums if things are not done to their liking. “They both get irritated very quickly,” one former member of staff said. “They are very picky. It comes naturally to them.”

Father and son throw tantrums, are quickly irritated and ‘naturally’ picky. I don’t know if it’s good PR or that the late Queen was naturally a polite woman, but she seems to have escaped being labelled as such. The rest of the born royals - not so much.

I wonder if it’s because the Queen was not brought up to be Queen as a child and her mother was not brought up in the RF either. Also the war and austerity influenced things. Charles has always had servants and been King in waiting, as has William.

Sitting down for the Queen's speech? In our house, we stand for the King's speech 🤣

'They both get irritated very quickly,” one former member of staff said. “They are very picky. It comes naturally to them.”'

Bit of a difference between the above and 'tantrums' though. Irritation and being picky is different to throwing a tantrum.

Also, evidence suggests Ms Markle is not above chucking a wobbly if things don't go her way. As evidenced by staff crying at their desks and the fairly extreme staff/friend/pr company turnover.

Suits being pressed etc sounds like fairly standard housekeeper /butler territory - not sure why that's a huge issue, tbh.

That’s very a good point.

The paragraph you’ve quote from that was part of the article said William’s and Charles are ‘prone to tantrums’. Not me. I wouldn’t know.

It’s not the suits being pressed etc that is the issue, it’s Charles and William’s response by way of tantrums, being picky and quickly irritated that is the issue.

Meghan probably did throw Wobblies. I just picked out the bit that confirms to me that the born royal members can be difficult. It’s one of my impressions of them.

There’s no reason to make this a Meghan vs other royal family members in the bad-behaviour- stakes.

Edited to add: although the article is quite funny in places, it is an article written by a journalist of royal staff - former annd also current I think - impressions of the family. No named sources. Again.