How the Middletons Quietly Changed the Royal Family FULL DOCUMENTARY

This is the inside story of when the Middletons met the monarchy, when suburbia met the royal firm, told by palace insiders. I was on duty. There was a girl standing on her own. This lady was Kate Middleton. Happy birthday, Kate. And family friends. There was intense press pressure. Some of the tabloids had come in and said, Middle-class commoners thrust into the heart of the royal family. You're not filming this, are you? What really happened behind closed doors when the party planners went to the palace? I'd heard that Camilla wasn't very keen on Catherine. Navigating the frictions within the royal family itself. I suppose there is a little tension sometimes between who gets to see the grandkids most. You know what? I'm jealous. How about me? Does he look like you or Catherine? He's got her looks, thankfully. How did the Middletons adapt when they met the House of Windsor? She's realised that she is going to have to listen to those that have come before her in order to win, and she gets it. And how will they help shape the future of the royal family? It will be the Middletons who have the influence because the royal family is stuck in its ways. One day, Prince George will be King George VII, descended from a family of miners. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are one of the most famous couples on the planet. Despite their very different family backgrounds, Kate started dating William while studying art history at the University of St Andrews. Little did she know this relationship would change her family's life forever. They are incredibly popular as young members of the royal family on whom an awful lot of responsibility has been placed. As a commoner, born into a middle-class Home Counties English family, Kate's integration into the royal family hasn't been easy. They started dating, but very quietly. No-one knew very much about it, only their closest circle of friends. There's talk that when Prince Charles was younger, his girlfriend used to call him Sir. I can't imagine knowing William that it would be anything like that. Here we have the monarchy. It has its own peculiar rules and protocol, which stretch back hundreds of years. Now, can you imagine stepping into that world and trying to integrate yourself? That is a very steep learning curve. When Kate's parents, Michael and Carol Middleton, were invited to an intimate lunch to meet the Queen for the first time, all eyes were on Windsor Castle. It must have been quite awesome to be going through those doors of the ancient medieval castle, these huge buildings that you know are steeped in history, where terribly important people live. It was a personal invite from the monarch and a momentous moment for the Middletons. People act really weird sometimes when they're meeting the Queen. Their hands get fidgety or they start sweating or start mumbling. In meeting the monarch, the Middletons needed to navigate the royal rules very carefully. Grant Harold spent seven years as a butler in the royal household. One of my jobs was, when people came to meet the royals, was to make sure that they were relaxed, calm, if they wanted any advice or guidance. And that's everything from the gentlemen do a neck bow, not a waist bow, and ladies do a cutsy, not too low down, because otherwise you might not come back up. I can just imagine Carol going through her wardrobe and trying to choose the perfect gown. I would say that always err on the side of grace and elegance, preferably a long sleeve. For a gentleman, not too many stripes, not too much fuss. The purpose of the meeting was really to put them at their ease, but it must be quite an intimidating moment for Carol Middleton, whose great-great-grandfather had been a coal miner in Durham. Carol apparently said, pleased to meet you, when she'd been told to say, how do you do? In the tension of the moment, you forget. I'm told that the lunch at Windsor Castle went very well, it went on for an hour and a half, which is quite long, actually, by Queen's standards. John Haley has known the Middletons for over 20 years. They struck up a friendship when the family became regulars at his pub, not far from their home in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury. We socialised with them, got invited to their house, which was very nice. Mike and Carol have got strong personalities. They can get on with anybody. They're so natural, so relaxed, very family-orientated. They just were liked by everybody. Historically, the in-laws have pretty much become outlaws, but I think Kate made it very clear to William she wasn't going to lose that close connection that she enjoyed with her own family. They're so isolated from ordinary family life, so there's an enormous gulf. We've seen in the past with people joining the royal family, it can be devastating. The backgrounds of Carol and Michael Middleton are worlds apart from the Windsors. Carol was brought up in the early part of her life in a council flat in an impecunious part of West London. You don't have to go back too far in the generations, and you reach the Durham connection. For many generations, her family were coal miners. There have been lots of reports about Carol's very humble upbringings. She was kind of a grafter who moved up the ranks and became a flight attendant at British Airways. Michael comes from a rather slightly grander stock. His family hail from Yorkshire, and they had made a fair bit of money. He became flight dispatcher for British Airways, and do you know what? They ran into one another and loved Blossom. The Middletons moved to Bucklebury in 1995. Kate and her younger siblings Pippa and James enjoyed an idyllic childhood. Bucklebury is a very quaint little village, as you imagine in an Agatha Christie story. There's a village green, little butchers and newsagents, little local pub. Bucklebury is quite a mixture of people. You've got some fabulously wealthy people, lovely big houses. They're a very close-knit community, and they all stand by each other. The Middleton family are incredibly close. Pippa Middleton is Kate's best friend. They were brought up together. There's only a year or two gap between them. Kate, Pippa and James were brought up impeccably. Kate is very similar to her father. She is more thoughtful and more discreet, perhaps, than Pippa, and quieter. Personally, I think that Pippa is more like her mother. She's very outgoing, very sociable, loves partying. Mike and Carol, they're strong people. Very loyal, down-to-earth, hard-working couple. The kids would come in and play in the garden, just like any other family. Carol set up her party pieces enterprise on the kitchen table. Michael then came into the business with her, and they turned it into a very successful party paraphernalia business. They're very ambitious. Carol has been said to be a perfectionist, and it certainly paid off for the Middleton family. A wealth of opportunities opened up for the Middleton children, and all three were privately educated. At the age of 14, Kate was sent to the prestigious Marlborough College, where fees can hit almost £40,000 a year. Carol was determined that they would go to very good private schools. She wanted her daughters to make the sort of connections with the right sort of people. Pippa followed Kate to Marlborough College. The two of them were very competitive with one another. I think, if anything, Pippa became the better sportswoman when she went to Edinburgh, where she read English. At St Andrew's University, Kate and William kept their burgeoning relationship very quiet. The press was sniffing around and saying, is there something going on here? But they would always say, no, no, we're just all housemates, you know how it is at university, load of students. And the rest of the Middletons treated the news with the utmost discretion. I've interviewed several members of the family over the years, and when William and Kate began dating, Carol actually phoned members of the family to tell them to be on their guard. I mean, they must have been dying to tell people, do you know, our daughter is dating Prince William! But I think they kept it to a very tight circle. As William and Kate's relationship blossomed, William visited the Middleton family home in Bucklebury. I think there are people who will say, well, you take us as we are. This is our house, our home, and you're invited into it. But I don't think they would necessarily then think they've got to put on a show. William and Carol struck a very close bond very early on. He would definitely have been happy to have a mother figure like Carol who was very nurturing and reliable and trustworthy. The Bucklebury locals made William feel very much at home. The very first time Prince William came in, the first thing he was looking for was a mint viennetta. And the family made a visit to the local pub. Two tables were booked this particular evening by Carol. The second table was for his security. Kate walked straight in, she said, Hi, John, how are you? I said, I'm fine, thank you. She said, oh, this is William, William, John. I'm Shukaz, nice to meet you. And it was just so relaxed. They were in the conservatory having a meal and the press came in the front, but they didn't even know they were there. A world away from the village of Bucklebury, however, William was planning the introduction of Kate to his family and, importantly, his father. When Catherine was taken to Highgrove, she would have been prepped by William. Charles and Catherine went for a walk in the garden on their own for a chat. They got on well, but Charles is, someone slightly unkindly put it, is a dry old stick. I think William would have said, look, he's a lovely man, but, you know, he's not the life and soul. I think that he would have admired the fact that Catherine was quite a mature, well-spoken and quite a confident girl, actually. Charles really made a point of welcoming Kate into the family from quite an early stage. She was often invited for shooting weekends up at Burke Hall. It's Charles who largely taught Kate to stalk. Most of the royal family quite like playing games. They play quite silly games sometimes after dinner. I think she would have found plenty to enjoy with them. She was taken to Highgrove, to Sandringham. She was taken into these scenarios to judge whether or not she was suited to it, whether she could handle it, whether she hated it. There were so many lessons of Princess Diana because no-one wanted another bride who was miserable. I'd heard that Camilla wasn't very keen on Catherine. She didn't shoot, she's not interested in horses particularly. There was too much of a gap and that William would feel it. But I think it's true to say Camilla later warmed to Catherine and recognised her solid virtues. Harry took some winning over. I think sometimes he felt that Kate was a bit straight and kept his brother a bit too much on the straight and narrow. I do remember Harry telling one of their friends, oh, he's become so boring. But actually he grew to love Kate and to see her as the sister, really, that he's never had. Catherine Middleton. After graduating from St Andrew's University with a 2-1, Kate moved into her parents' flat in London. But she was soon hit with the harsh reality of being the girlfriend of the future monarch, catapulted into the centre of a media frenzy. Suddenly, overnight, everybody wants a piece of you. Now, psychologically, that can have a hugely stressful impact. In fact, some people who've become famous overnight describe it as being very traumatising. She'd be surrounded by news crews, 20 cameramen. It's pretty tough, but she didn't complain about it publicly. Kate was advised to watch a film of how Diana dealt with the press. That might have been a salutary lesson for Catherine. You've got to accept that early on, you're not going to like it. The Middletons are now thrown firmly into the spotlight. If you come from a very tight, close family unit, suddenly exposing all the rest of the members to becoming, you know, public fodder can be immensely painful. Some of the tabloids had come in and said, is it true Carol drives through the village at 50 miles an hour? Well, you know, it's totally untrue. Mike and Carol got strong personalities, so they was able to deal with this. I noticed the odd time they bumped into a reporter in the pub, that they would just say, I'm sorry, we don't talk to the press. Carol and Michael were invited to William's passing out ceremony at Sandhurst. Carol got some very unfair criticism for chewing gum in public. In fact, it was Nicorette, because she'd given up smoking. I'm sure Carol must have been mortified by the headlines. She got a lot of flack for it. It's got to be quite humiliating. She wore it with good grace, she didn't say anything about it. When William and Kate split for a period in 2007, the Middleton family were faced with negative headlines. William made the call and said, I think it's the right person at the wrong time type of call. What was quite difficult was that he was not only splitting from Catherine, he was splitting from her family and he'd become very close to them. Carol Middleton in particular was a target of the tabloid press. Snide remarks, she was too pushy. Rumours that Carol and Catherine had a plan to almost ambush William and Sir Andrews. None of these have been proved to be true. She had to take some stick over her mum being an heiress. Crossed doors to Manuel was said a few times, I think. This is a woman that built a very, very successful business, so I don't think she really gave two hoots about it, from what I understand. William was very upset and he telephoned the Middletons very quickly to say that the criticisms had not come from him or any of the royals. You could say they were almost royal in the way they dealt with all the press attention, actually. They're quite savvy, the Middletons. They just put up and shut up, and that was a very sound strategy. On nights out in London, newly single Kate was seen to be sporting an adventurous style. It was Carol who said to Kate, you go and show him what he's missing. Carol knew that her daughter was perfect future Queen material. If this was indeed a plan cooked up by Carol Middleton, it certainly worked. Around ten weeks later, the relationship was back on. I was so excited that they were actually back together. One of my favourite memories was Prince Charles's birthday. There was a girl standing on her own, but nobody was speaking to her. This lady was Kate Middleton. I felt sorry, so I walked over to her and started chatting to her. The fact they'd just got back together, and there might have been that thing where people didn't really know what to say. Despite the press intrusion, William and Kate's relationship was seemingly stronger than ever. Kate was finally introduced to the most revered royal relative of them all, the Queen. In 2008, Kate attended the wedding of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly at St George's Chapel in Windsor. William wasn't able to go to that wedding. For Katherine to attend on her own was really quite significant. I can only imagine it would have been a rollercoaster of emotions and a desperate need to want to get it right, and also to impress the Queen, the monarch, but also this is her boyfriend's grandma. But it was a private moment when Kate finally met the head of the House of Windsor. It would have been carefully choreographed by royal advisers. She would have been told just to wait for the Queen, and the Queen would have had someone there to point out Katherine. At the reception, the Queen came over and spoke to Katherine, and reportedly they had a little chat, it was very pleasant, and the Queen let it be known that she'd been wanting to meet Katherine for a long time. I'm sure that the Queen and Kate found loads to talk about. Kate studied history of art at university, and the Queen obviously has an extensive collection of fine paintings, and they both adore the countryside. You see, the thing about Kate, she just has this ability, I think it's partly being confident, being very smiley, but crucially not being embarrassed about who she is. The Queen would have warmed to that. Despite establishing her place within the Windsor Inner Circles, two years later there was still no sign of an engagement ring. It's rumoured Carol Middleton took the delicate matter of her daughter's future into her own hands. She sat down with William and just said to him, is this going to end in a marriage? She was close enough to be able to do that. William gave his assurance that he was going to make an honest woman of Kate, he wasn't going to leave her on the shelf. True to his word, in October 2010, William finally asked Kate to marry him. They met at university, they will one day be King and Queen. And when the newly engaged couple appeared in their first joint TV interview, Kate's family were at the forefront of William's mind. Mike and Carol have only been really loving and caring and really fun, and have been really welcoming towards me, so I felt really part of the family. For William, what I noticed when he talks about the Middleton family, he goes from clasped hands to open palms and gets very animated. He's telling you, I feel very positively about these people. I really didn't expect it at all. I thought he might have maybe thought about it, but no. It was a total shock when it came and I'm very excited. The excitement about the royal engagement swept the world, and nowhere more so than the Middleton's home village of Bucklebury. The evening after, there was a massive party. They all come in the pub, I remember Mike got up and gave a speech and thanked everyone and all his friends and, you know, being good with the family. And we all, you know, really celebrated the news. In a move breaking with royal precedent, the Middletons held a press conference outside the family home. It doesn't look too cheesy, does it? Are you sure? You're not filming this, are you? Michael and Carol came out looking, to their credit, I think, not dressed up to the nines, looking very relaxed, quite informal, and I think everyone took to them then and thought, oh, they're quite ordinary folk, good for them. They were naturals, actually, in front of the camera. They make a lovely couple, they're great fun to be with and we've had a lot of laughs together. It was so natural for Mike to be able to give this speech and speak to the press from all over the world. I remember congratulating Mike when I saw him next a few days later. Was it all right? Don't need to retake? The Middletons are actually the ultimate professionals when it comes to being public figures, handling it with confidence and with poise and just getting that note right. A sweet interview. Carol, as she disappeared into the distance, she flicked her hair back and went, crumb, goodness, you know, as if. How extraordinary to be in such an amazing position. Just a month after getting engaged, William and Kate announced the date of their wedding as 29th April 2011. We saw William and Kate after the announcement of the engagement. As I said, congratulations, it's great news and I'm sure you'll have a fabulous life together. I think what people might be surprised to learn is that actually, until that engagement was official, Kate really had no training whatsoever. William had his private office, William had the palace machine behind him. Clearly, everything changed once they became engaged because everything is sort of scaled up to another level. From then on, she had full-time police protection, which made a huge difference in terms of keeping the paparazzi at bay. And, of course, she had to start beginning to plan on what life within the royal family was going to be like. The Queen certainly played a role in preparing Catherine to marry William, but not in any sort of formal sense. She would have just given her odd bits of advice, just to encourage her. The reality is the Queen lets members of the royal family find their own way, and that's the way she did it. There wouldn't be some sort of blackboard up, this is how you become a royal wife. Catherine will have been given advice and some gentle tutoring by courtiers within the royal household. It was all done internally, what sort of clothes to wear for what occasion, and how to interact with the public. It wasn't only Kate that was prepared for life in the royal family. The Middletons themselves were also now to be at the heart of the monarchy. For the royal family, they've been born and raised into it, they know the rules of engagement at big events like a royal wedding. For the Middleton family, I think it would only be fair to offer them guidance, support and help about protocol. Otherwise the likelihood for making a mistake is pretty high. The wider Middleton family would have been given some support, particularly Mum and Dad, so there'd be security checks and making sure they've got all the correct procedures in place for that. She'd be so proud now to know that he's in that position. William sat down with them, he explained to them how things would change. He made sure that he was there for them. Carol had William's number in her phone, as did Michael, so that they could call him if they needed him. I remember from a butler's point of view when I joined, you're made aware from that day forward your life is never going to be quite the same. So can you imagine when we're talking about Kate Middleton and her family marrying into the royal family? Of course, it is going to change their lives. As Kate and her family adjusted to life in the royal firmament, plans for the wedding took shape. I mean, this was not going to be just some ordinary family wedding because it involved the heir in line to the throne. It was going to be at one of the grandest churches in the land at Westminster Abbey and inevitably it meant that many of the preparations had to be taken out of the Middletons' hands and put in the hands of the royal household. Weddings cause fights and rifts in the best of families and so I'm sure there were some very fraught moments in the planning of William and Kate's wedding as well. The Middletons did spend a lot of money themselves and with that money came control. She was able to express personal taste and judgement. The thing about Catherine that works so well is that she does have her own mind and she does like to make decisions about what she does and how she appears but she does it within a framework that's acceptable to the royal family. For a few of the Middleton family friends in Bucklebury, it meant an unexpected invite. She said, oh, hi John, this is Pippa. I said, oh, what can I do for you? She said, Kate's asked me to phone you and would like to know if you'd like to come to the wedding. It was just great of Kate to invite a couple of dozen friends from the area. It says something special about Kate because she didn't want it just to be a royal wedding, she wanted her family there, her friends there. And there was one member of the Middleton family in particular who had captured the press and public's imagination. No-one really knew who Pippa Middleton was but, my goodness, if you didn't know who she was before the royal wedding, you certainly knew who she was afterwards. I think that that dress certainly propelled her into the public domain with many people discussing her look and her shape and so on. It had a series of beautiful little satin buttons down the back, all the way down the back in really rather a demure but undeniably sexy way. And it was Pippa's rear which caught the attention of the media almost more than the royal bride. These two families from very different worlds came together publicly for the first time as they stepped onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Well, for William, I would have thought it was probably something that he was fine with because he's been doing it since he was a little kid. But I can imagine for Kate, wandering out on the balcony and then you see this huge swathe of people. It must have looked magnificent. For now, all eyes may have been on Kate and William but after the wedding, attention quickly turned to Pippa once again. She had become her royal hotness and what a brief spell when everything Pippa did almost eclipsed what her sister was doing. I think Pippa found that quite hard. I've met her once or twice and she didn't seek this publicity and she had no idea quite what it was going to do to her. Pippa wasn't alone. For the entire Middleton family, their sudden elevation into the aristocracy brought with it a unique set of problems. Not least that they still had to earn a living. The Middletons didn't seek the spotlight but by their circumstance and of course who they were and who their daughter had married into they were the subject of intense scrutiny and unsurprisingly their business was something that the press really pored over. Carol set up the family business a mail order party supplies company called Party Pieces in 1987. Whenever a new line came on the Party Pieces website people would be looking to see if that was slightly going to infringe royal protocol are they exploiting the royal connections by choosing things to sell. It wasn't bad publicity for their company but that's not their fault. They didn't choose their daughter's husband. They're a hardworking family. They built up a very, very good business and the press were being very unfair to them. After her starring role in The Wedding Pippa Middleton was a particular source of fascination to the press and public and potentially a flashpoint with the royals. She, like Diana's brother Earl Spencer, came under the spotlight quite a lot. Who she was dating, how she was making her money, etc. She became a hot property. She really was one of the most sought after socialites on the London party circuit. I mean I remember being at events and Pippa turned up. Photographers would go crazy. But with the eyes of the world and the royals upon her she began to feel the pressure. Once she was famous, one of the most famous people in the world there were bound to be accusations that she was using her position as the sister of the future Queen of England to further her commercial interests. It was even alleged that Pippa was using her position in the royal orbit to her advantage. Whether that was getting a deal with waitrose, writing a party planning book, being on the top of the guest list for some of the biggest parties in London. Pippa Middleton has had an interesting journey. We had the book on entertainment was written. Although the advance was huge paid to Pippa and contained such fascinating insights such as if you're going to host a stargazing party it's best to do it at night. I think it did get to the point, particularly for Pippa, where she was advised just to keep a lower profile. I think it did get to the point certainly where at the palace there was a level of concern about just how much exposure Pippa was getting. And I think at that point a word was had from Kate to her sister just to say look it's in your best interest to just dial this down a little bit. The youngest member of the Middleton family, James, wasn't immune to criticism either. James was a very young man at the time his sister married and of course he had a lot of growing up to do. There were some nude pictures that emerged of James Middleton taken years before but splashed across some of the papers. It must be very hard when you're just a private person going about your own life to find your past dragged up and your bin's gone through and cameras trained on you when you least expect it. It was around James' business dealings that the scrutiny became most intense and potentially damaging to the family's new royal connection. Of course they're not royal but they're still somehow connected. So for Pippa and James every attempt they made to support themselves to start a business, to write a book, to whatever it was was going to be criticised heavily and scrutinised. So there were privileges and perks of being associated with the royals but there was also a lot of pressure and scrutiny and negative headlines. James is slightly younger, a few years younger than his sisters and has been somewhat overshadowed by them I think but he is very close to them. Very much a chip off the Middleton family block he went to the same school as his sisters and he went to Edinburgh University. He did not however complete his degree course and he dropped out. From a very early age he wasn't particularly looking to go and make a career as a solicitor or something like that. He was looking to set up and run something himself. James is probably most like Carol. He's very much an entrepreneur. It seems that he was quite determined to follow in his entrepreneurial parents' footsteps and make something of his life. He started up several businesses. One went bust owing a great deal of money so he was criticised for that. Despite their rapid rise to royal circles the Middletons held firm to the monarchy's mantra never complain, never explain. I think the Middletons have been exemplary actually in how they've conducted themselves since becoming part of the extended royal family if you like. They have maintained absolutely the first rule almost the only rule which is to be discreet. They've just been in the background supporting William, supporting Catherine. I think they've fitted in quietly and calmly and handled it all with immense aplomb. Upon her wedding to Prince William in April 2011 Kate was no longer a Middleton. Catherine, Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge was now a Windsor, married into one of the most famous institutions in the world. The amount of scrutiny that she felt beforehand was nothing compared to the amount of scrutiny that she would face the rest of her life. A true baptism of fire for any royal is their first overseas engagement. And for Kate, just two months after her wedding to Prince William she faced a daunting nine-day tour of Canada. They don't get much sleep when they're doing those tours but at the same time they're really important that they do them. I once said to the Prince of Wales, I hope you enjoy your vacation. And he's like, it's not a vacation, it's a tour! With over 1,300 journalists following Kate's every move the eyes of the world were watching this new royal. There was an extraordinary amount of pressure and it was details like wearing something reflective of when Princess Diana was there or wearing a brooch that the Queen herself wore when she was in Canada. Despite wowing crowds overseas, back on home soil Kate faced more pressure as she struggled to hone her royal skill set. None of us really love public speaking and it is, for a member of the royal family, a key part of the job description. Now, Catherine's first speech in public is slightly painful to watch because it's not terrible, but it's not great. First of all, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you for not only accepting me as your patron but thank you also for inviting me here today. You can see that she was incredibly nervous. There's zero personality, but to be perfectly honest for a royal speech you're not massively meant to put personality but you can put a little bit more than what Catherine gave it. It is a shining example of the support and the care that is delivered not just here, but in the children's hospice movement at large up and down the country. The first chapter of Kate's life as a Windsor had started with a whirlwind and Kate was now faced with her first official royal Christmas at Sandringham. What to give someone for Christmas is always a nightmare, isn't it? And what do you give the Queen? Catherine absolutely hit the nail on the head when she decided to give the Queen some homemade chutney and I think the Queen would have absolutely loved that. And then she showed her sense of humour and her great relationship with Harry by giving him a Grow Your Own Girlfriend kit. And they would have loved that. Kate had come a long way from her days as a student at St Andrew's University but had her meteoric rise affected the relationships within the monarchy? You can't please everybody when you enter a new family and if you think about Kate's position she has been elevated in the pecking order of royalty and she's now above Beatrice and Eugenie. Less than a year after Kate married into the royal family rumours of tensions within the palace began to gather momentum as Prince Charles looked to streamline the monarchy. It's tricky for Beatrice and Eugenie, both born true royal princesses to be bumped down the pecking order. Catherine was the scapegoat. She was the person who came in because she takes a senior position and she has an effect on the rest of the family. A striking image from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee showed a new look monarchy with a former Middleton just a year into her royal marriage at its front and centre. It looks more modern, it looks more considered but of course within the family it does cause these problems. From humble beginnings, Kate was now at the forefront of a modern monarchy but it would be another new addition to the firm that would set in motion one of the family's biggest fallouts. Do you ever have disagreements about things? Oh yes. Healthy disagreements. OK, the last thing you disagreed on, how do you resolve it? I can't remember, they come so thick and fast. When Meghan joined the royal family everyone assumed that she and Kate would become best buddies because they were both outsiders but of course they are naturally very different women. Kate in many ways was sort of collateral damage in all this and she and Meghan didn't particularly get along. The relationship was not as straightforward as the wider world thought. Despite the simmering tensions the Middleton and Windsor bloodlines became inextricably linked on 22nd July 2013 when Prince George was born at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. Who does he look like? Does he look like you or Catherine? He's got her looks, thankfully. George was born and it was special and everyone was coming in saying, wow, we've got the first born boy and he's going to be a future king and Carol is his grandma and Mike, of course, his granddad. He's absolutely beautiful. They're both doing really well and we're so thrilled. Kate and William came to visit the Middletons. I was invited round for a glass of wine and we met and that was a special time. I'm not good with babies really but it was good to be able to meet the future king. And within five years Kate and William's brood had grown with the arrival of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. One future king and his two younger siblings. But who will have the greatest say in their future? I suspect everyone thinks that in terms of the children the royal family will inevitably have the most influence. But that's entirely wrong. It will be the Middletons who have the influence because the royal family is too formal, it's too stuck in its ways. I think there's going to be a modification of the royal upbringing which is in part just because we're living in different days but also because Kate had a very sensible upper middle class upbringing and she'll want her boys to experience some of that. Regardless of his upbringing, Prince George along with siblings Charlotte and Louis will have an undeniable date with destiny. One day Prince George will be King George VII and it's amazing to think that he is descended from a family of miners in County Durham. Since their introduction to the royal firm almost 20 years ago the Middleton family have succeeded where many others have fallen short. The village is very proud of Kate. Mike and Carol have conducted themselves so well considering the pressure they had on them not many people could have done that. To integrate with a royal family the way they have I think they've done an absolutely great job. I think one of the Middleton's great strengths is they're a very close family and they support one another and they can talk to one another. They just quietly get on with their lives and that's exactly what you need to do when you're associated with royalty don't draw attention to yourselves. You couldn't have picked a more perfect family to marry into the royals than the Middleton's.