Christmas Day walk in Sandringham

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This is such a strange thing....so the royal family walk along a stretch of path every year and people gather to watch them. These people try to talk to the Wales children and give them presents. They are photographing the children, taking selfies, etc. I think the kids are far too young to do this. It is so odd.

How on earth do William & Catherine think this is okay?!

I agree. It can’t be justified. It is basic parenting to protect your children from strangers overstepping normal boundaries and anyone who tries to erode those boundaries because they are ‘advisors’ should be told these things like selfies and hugs won’t be happening.

Are you saying that this is entirely the responsibility of the Wales’ PR?

Problem for the Wales’ is they have signed up for taking their dcs in the most bizarre way, they’ve accepted using them for family PR- which includes showing the public the continuity of the royal family.

So given they’ve already crossed lots of lines that normal parenting would call a fail (for most people these days, raising your dcs having told them their career path and they have a duty to have a particular job as an adult is seen as bad parenting), so they are not always going to realise when they’ve gone too far.

I watched the footage and was genuinely gobsmacked at the selfies, hugging and William introducing his children to the Nanny Diana stalker by name. We are told they are good parents but this makes me question what is going on.

To add, I’m not saying they’re not good parents, but on this occasion, they have made a mistake. Hopefully will be rectified and things will be done very differently in the future.

I really hope so.

I agree. Royal children have always been used as deflections ( William and Harry especially after Dianas death).Its what they do, to protect the institution and what they will be expected to do.

If you head there at 8am you won't get the 'prime' positions, some queue all night for those! As for security apparently it's very tight so I don't think there's much of a risk though any food items I think will be disposed of back at the house. I'm always interested in the women who wear high heeled shoes of boots, the walk up from the house is a bit steep!

In all seriousness, we live in different times. The Queen was never to be touched and no-one would have asked her for a selfie. Now the King is group hugging women. Granny Diana was a great one for dispensing hugs and kisses, she opened the door to that sort of physical contact. Expectations have been raised and it's going to be hard to manage people back into line.

I was very grateful for Covid introducing social distancing, I've never quite given it up...

Well, not allowing strangers to have physical contact with the children would be easy enough. What adults choose to do is up to them.

How, though? People reach out and grab, they wave flowers and cards, they beckon the children over and call out to them. I suppose they could send people out to talk to the crowd and set boundaries, they may do this already.

As has been said many a time on here, the path is very wide and many other royals just walk up the middle of it, the children could do the same. Wave and smile

They could walk down the middle
of the path as they’ve done before. On this occasion the children were actually encouraged to go across to them. Optics, innit?

William and Kate (as adults) are well equipped to deal with whatever may come up when interacting with crowds of people, but no-one (their parents especially) should expect children to have to manage fanatical members of the public. I think this is what has led to people questioning William/Kate's parenting judgement, and if the children aren't being made to perform more public interaction than would be normal/safe, to try and counteract the growing negative press they are receiving (Andrew's crimes and Williams tax dodging).

It's a shame the children are maybe being used this way, but the Royal machine focusses on the institution and not the individuals. I remember feeling sad for Kate when they made her go to the Sarah Everard memorial without a Covid mask (so she could be photo'd - despite masks being used by everyone in public at the time), she then got the backlash for breaching Covid guidelines in search of PR/attention, when it was clearly the Royal machine who made her not wear a mask.

I get that William and Kate need to go along with these things, but I did think they'd shield the children from it.

”They made her go without a mask”? How do you know that?

I remember feeling sad for Kate when they made her go to the Sarah Everard memorial without a Covid mask (so she could be photo'd - despite masks being used by everyone in public at the time), she then got the backlash for breaching Covid guidelines in search of PR/attention, when it was clearly the Royal machine who made her not wear a mask.

No need to feel sorry for Kate as this scenario is complete fiction! No guidelines were breached. The UK Government’s Covid regulations never required members of the public to wear masks when they were simply outside in general. The requirements for face coverings were always limited to specific indoor or transit settings, not a blanket outdoor mandate.

I hope that helps…

Because I have eyes. If you look at the images from the memorial, 99% of people had masks on:

https://news.sky.com/story/duchess-of-cambridge-pays-tribute-at-memorial-site-for-sarah-everard-12245021

Kate also wore a mask (just like everyone else), during many events before and after this memorial. She was obviously instructed to not wear a mask for the news story of her attending to work - it would have harder to report without a photo. I don't think she'd have decided this herself, she's better than that and would have known that the memorial was not about her.

Anyone who thinks that the Royal press office doesn't advise/dictate (on even the small details) for all William/Kate's public actions are deluded/naive.

Ah-so because she did something you don’t like it was because she was forced to. Got it.

The alternative is that she CHOSE to not wear a mask - which woudn't reflect well on her (both for spreading covid and taking attention away from Sarah) - so I gave Kate the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think the vigil visit was anything to do with the Palace machine. I get the impression it was a personal visit to show solidarity. The crime was horrendous and could of happened to any woman out in the evening.

I know how it looked to me, either way, I don't want to derail the thread from it's main discussion point which is whether William and Kate showed the kind of protective parental instincts that most other parents show naturally. I don't think they did - shouting "are you OK?" after a thing has happened isn't great parenting.

You are conflating two different things there. There was a late afternoon organised vigil at the site of the improvised Sarah Everard memorial. The first footage embedded in the Sky news website, showing tens and tens of people standing close together in a semi-circle, is from that vigil. And most people are wearing masks to that, yes as it was a large outdoor gathering where they were standing in close proximity.

Kate didn’t attend that vigil. She visited the memorial site earlier in the day to pay her respects, along with general members of the public who were doing the same thing. There was no organised event when Kate visited. You can see from the footage of that that some people were wearing masks and some were not. There was no requirement to wear a mask for that kind of activity.

Tiptoeing back O/T.

352 days to go until we get to see if any of the criticism has been taken on board.

Can't wait 🌲☃ 👀

Maybe we can keep the thread going till then? 😃

I also have eyes and remember this well - mainly due to the vile over reaction of the Police.

You're confusing 2 different events.
Catherine was seen in the afternoon - it wasn't a planned event, it was just people pausing at the memorial site to pay condolences as they walked by. When you watch the video footage - 10s of people are seen, socially distancing, under half wearing masks (not required when outdoors socially distancing - which Catherine was). That footage was taken by someone at the park on a camera phone, not by Press.

The pictures in the article you linked are from later that evening (at different events around the country) which were organised vigils with hundreds of people gathered closely together, with press invited. That's why everyone was wearing a mask.

Let's not rewrite recent history.