Prince William will take Kate to live in Kensington Palace later this month.They will, of course, be waiting — just as they were always waiting relentlessly for Princess Diana when she lived there. For the paparazzi, it will be like old times when Prince William takes Kate to live in Kensington Palace later this month. This palace, so perfect for the paps because of its high accessibility on all sides, is still resonant of Diana’s unhappy years inside its walls and of that lake of flowers which magically appeared at its front gates after her death almost 14 years ago. One has to wonder just how deeply Prince William considered the implications of moving into the one royal address that is so personally associated with his mother — and which royal staff really do consider to be ‘unlucky’. Clearly, the Duke of Cambridge is not quite the cautious young man that he seems. First, there was his emotional decision to give Kate his mother’s famous sapphire and diamond engagement ring — for many, a permanent symbol of Diana’s unhappiness. Now, he moves his bride into Kensington Palace, where every time she tries to slip away to the shops on Kensington High Street — just as Diana loved doing — there will be inevitable comparisons with the mother-in-law she never knew. To Diana, ‘KP’, as she called it, came to be ‘more prison than palace’. To Kate, moving there will be the moment she really begins to understand what her royal life is going to be. So why make their lives there? Let’s look at the options. Clarence House was briefly considered because that is where William has been sharing an apartment with his brother, Harry. At least, it was considered until the Duchess of Cornwall, in her light but decisive manner, declared: ‘There’s no room here.’ Then there was St James’s Palace next door, where William has his office. But he did not want to live there because, as a friend of his says, it is ‘rather gloomy’. The only other choice was Buckingham Palace, where Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and the Earl of Wessex still keep apartments. But just imagine the upheaval — and angst for Charles — if the popular William were to make his marital home in the monarch’s official residence. But all the time, Kensington Palace was where William really wanted to live with Kate, if only temporarily, possibly because of his fond memories of his own happy childhood there before things began to go badly wrong with his parents’ marriage. They are memories that are very precious to Will, though he doesn’t really talk much about his childhood,’ says one of his closest friends. Even so, the later unhappiness of his mother, whom her ten-year-old son often found himself having to comfort when she was in despair, probably makes it a blessing that Diana’s old flat, Apartments 8 & 9, is no longer available. Situated over three floors with staff quarters and a nursery, it would have been far too big for the newlyweds anyway. After Diana’s death, it was stripped of everything and left a shell for almost ten years. Now it has been split up into various offices for charities, as well as providing an official home for the Army’s Chief of the General Staff: General Sir Richard Dannatt was its first resident. Two rather more modest apartments are immediately available. As for William, few married men choose to move their bride into the home where they were brought up. For him, there will be the memories of scrambling with Harry round the endless corridors, and playing with chauffeur David Griffin’s dog on the green outside the palace, as well as with their cousins — the three children of the Queen’s then private secretary Robert (now Lord) Fellowes, married to Diana’s sister Lady Jane. William is bound to tell Kate the glorious tale of when imperious Princess Michael brought in pest control people to round up all the stray cats she felt were troubling her Burmese and Siamese pedigrees. Humanely trapped in cages, the cats’ escape was then secretly masterminded by Diana and William, who arranged their dramatic release, replacing them — to haughty Princess Michael’s fury — with a solitary stuffed toy cat. No doubt, William’s memories will come flooding back once the couple are installed. Not all of them will be happy, but Diana would be thrilled to know that he’s brought Kate back to live there.
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