The Daily Mail's article:
"As Kate Middleton prepares to become Princess Catherine, there’s a lot more for her to worry about than what Pippa’s got lined up for the hen night.
Because once all the fuss and flag-waving has died down, and she embarks on her new regime of duties — starting with a royal visit to Canada at the end of June, any gaps in her knowledge of etiquette and protocol are set to be ruthlessly exposed.
That’s why she’s allegedly being trained up by experts in everything from how to greet foreign dignitaries to the correct method of eating a grape. After all, Kate is posh, but she’s not aristocracy — and none of this will come naturally to her.
As a fellow commoner, I am equally un-trained when it comes to deportment, curtseying, banqueting and handling servants. So in a bid to understand just what Kate’s up against, I booked in for Princess lessons with etiquette expert Jean Broke-Smith.
As the former principal of the famed Lucie Clayton School of Grooming and Modelling for 30 years, she has taught politicians, royalty and TV stars, and casually says: ‘I’ve trained all Prince William’s girlfriends. Apart from Middleton.’
This, she explains, is because ‘Middleton’ was not a deb.
‘She seems a nice enough girl,’ Jean observes. ‘But she will have to learn to be a princess.’
My own ancestry involves Russian egg-importers and Mancunian tobacconists. I suspect I’m going to find this a challenge.
LESSON ONE: Greeting Royalty
Prince William has grown up meeting foreign dignitaries and royalty from all over the world. ‘It’s a way of life for him,’ Jean says. Kate, however, will have to concentrate hard to avoid making a faux pas.‘Do you remember when Michelle Obama put her arm round the Queen to shepherd her?’ Jean shudders. ‘One never, ever touches the Queen.’
Princess Catherine will have to show subservience to other royals, and shake hands several hundred times a week, for the rest of her life. I always thought a handshake was simple enough — it’s not.
My first few attempts are too firm, and I’m waiting for Jean to shake first. ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘Royalty always offers the hand first.’
As if that’s not enough, curtseying is a minefield. The full, sweeping dip, beloved of costume dramas, is appropriate only in a big, floor-length dress, Jean says.
Only the Queen herself requires a floor-sweeper at formal events — for other royals, a bob will suffice.
As far as Jean is concerned, protocol begins with, ‘bum in, shoulders back!’ she says, tapping my bottom. ‘SQUEEZE the muscles in!’ It’s like being at a particularly vicious Pilates class.
The ‘bob’ is hands at the sides, one foot in front of the other, and a knee-bend. Apparently, I’m ‘sticking my hands out as if I’m about to take off’. That’s because I’m trying not to fall over.
LESSON TWO: Sitting And Standing
I always thought my posture was quite good. In fact, Jean says, it’s dreadful. Given the hours that princesses must stand still, a good stance is crucial.‘One foot slightly in front of the other, toes out,’ says Jean. It’s basically third position in ballet. She prods me till I vacuum in my tummy (no easy task).
‘Shoulders back, head up!’ she says. ‘Imagine a wire running from the top of your head, holding you up,’ she adds. ‘And pretend you’ve a zip running up your middle, holding you in.’ I feel like a reject from the Build-A–Bear workshop, vainly trying to keep my stuffing in.
Sitting is equally testing. One must brush the chair with the back of your calves — ‘so you aren’t going to miss the chair’.
After lowering my bottom onto the edge, I should then push back into the seat. Then I place my feet to one side. I may cross my ankles — ‘but you must never cross your legs, it’s masculine’.
The purpose of all this is to ensure that knees are Velcro-ed together. A flash of princess-ly undergarments would be a severe broach of protocol. The standing up is not so easy, as I’m required to shunt forward, lift myself elegantly, and end up in
Princess in training: Any gaps in Kate Middleton's knowledge of etiquette and protocol are set to be ruthlessly exposed second position again. I topple sideways. ‘Oh dear,’ sighs Jean. I hope Kate’s mastered the art of standing up better than I have.
LESSON THREE: Walking
For a princess, the correct gait of walking even has a name — The Glide. I show Jean my ‘princess walk.’‘You’re crossing your knees over each other,’ sighs Jean.
I think I picked that up from America’s Next Top Model.
‘Start with all your weight on your back foot,’ says Jean. My feet should be half a foot-length apart, ‘otherwise you’ll be striding like a giant’, and the correct way to place the weight is heel, instep, then toe.
‘You should brush your foot lightly against the other heel as you step, so you can tell your feet are aligned,’ she instructs.
I’m beginning to feel like John Cleese. And I’m holding my hands out as stiffly as a three-year-old at dance class again. ‘Loosely!’ says Jean. ‘By your sides!’
She ends up crouching on the floor, in a desperate bid to reposition my feet. I don’t remember this at the royal engagement.
‘No, well, Middleton walks very well,’ concedes Jean. ‘I suspect she’s already had lessons.’
LESSON FOUR: Table Manners
A royal banquet is the biggest danger-zone of them all, riddled with potential gaffes and errors.Even cocktail parties can provide difficulties. ‘Always keep your glass in your left hand,’ says Jean, ‘so your right hand is free for shaking.’ And when it comes to canapes? ‘Some people find it easier not to bother.’ No wonder Kate has got so thin.
Of course, at dinner, there are obvious rules — no mobile phones, no leaning over the table to grab bread. But, adds Jean: ‘I’m constantly horrified by the way people hold cutlery.’
You must never put a finger against the top of your fork to guide it. And no one of blue blood would ever use their fork as a scoop. ‘Even with peas,’ she says, firmly. ‘One just presses them onto the back. Or avoids them.’
I’m feeling fairly smug, until she talks me through the uses of a forest of glasses and adds: ‘Of course, you never, ever, hold your glass out for a refill.’
Oops. Princesses don’t drink much, apparently.
If you are dining with the Queen, you wait for her to begin. And if you are taking tea with her, ‘the Queen always pours’, confides Jean. So don’t say ‘Shall I be Mother?’ and grab the pot.
LESSON FIVE: Coat Management
Never have I given any thought to how I remove my coat.‘No,’ Jean sighs, when I demonstrate my method. ‘You see, you’re dangling it all over the floor.’
Although I assume that for Kate a footman will be on hand to help her, it’s a useful skill.
‘Put in one arm and pull the collar right up to your neck,’ Jean says. ‘Then when you reach behind, the other sleeve will be in exactly the right place.’
She’s right. Her taking-off advice is even better.
‘Push the coat a little way off your shoulders,’ she says. ‘Now, reach behind you and grasp the cuff of the left sleeve in your right hand. You take it off, bring the coat round to the front, take both cuffs in your left hand, and then reach through the arms to the collar.’
It’s simpler than it sounds. I wonder if Kate knows about this?
LESSON SIX: Getting In And Out Of A Car
Astonishing numbers of celebrities have come adrift trying to enter and exit cars elegantly.Former PM’s wife Sarah Brown admits she whacked her head the first time she got into the PM’s limo, while knicker-flashing starlets are ten a penny. That’s because they haven’t learnt the princess rule — always enter the car bottom first, so you can slide in backwards.
Getting out of a normal car is a matter of swinging your legs to the side and stepping out.
‘But in a big, chauffeur-driven car, such as a Bentley, the mistake people make is to step forward first,’ Jean explains. Instead, you remain seated, swing both legs to the side and exit on the diagonal.
Worst of all is the sports car. ‘Hold lightly onto the top of the car as you get in and out,’ says Jean, ‘that way, you won’t bump your head.’
Thank goodness I’ll never need to worry about all this. Kate has just a few weeks to crack all this and more. She may be the envy of every woman in the country, but I can’t help but feel very sorry for her indeed."
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1362394/Kate-Middleton-said-taking-royal-etiquette-lessons-princess.html
The Telegraph:
"Walking, it turns out, is not quite as easy as simply putting one foot in front of the other. Not when you are doing it in front of Jean Broke-Smith, etiquette expert and former principal of the Lucie Clayton finishing school. This, I decide, must be how a model feels just before she steps on to a catwalk for the first time. Or perhaps more accurately, how a drunk feels when stopped by the police and asked to walk in a straight line after one too many down the pub.
“Let me see you walk,” commands Ms Broke-Smith, as I stand nervously in the basement of her fabulously appointed Holland Park home. Copies of Vogue are scattered elegantly on a pouffe. Biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales, take pride of place on her mantelpiece. The crockery is predominantly pale pink, and there is a set commemorating the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Ms Broke-Smith is rumoured to have coached the Duchess’s mother, Carole Middleton, in the complicated art of getting out of a car. Other former pupils include Joanna Lumley and Esther Rantzen, who wrote glowingly about her lessons in the Telegraph last week. And now it is my turn.
I gulp and take a deep breath. I bet the Middletons wouldn’t turn up at a deportment lesson with a backpack and a Sainsbury’s carrier bag containing last night’s leftovers, frugally dished into a Tupperware box so they can be eaten for lunch. Nor would they be wearing thoroughly chipped fluorescent orange varnish on their nails. “Fabulous colour,” says Ms Broke-Smith, smiling diplomatically.
As requested, I am wearing a skirt that reaches the knees (well, almost), the sole such item I own. I have failed to find a pair of demure two-inch heels – as was asked of me – because nowadays, high street shops only stock heels that resemble stilts. Slowly, I start to walk across her kitchen. I hold my head as high as I can, and try not to slouch. I turn, and return to my teacher, who is staring intently at my gait. What follows seems like an excruciatingly long silence.
“You’re very right-handed, aren’t you?” says Broke-Smith. I nod dumbly, unaware that you could be “very” anything-handed. I am wondering if it is a good thing to be very right-handed, if, indeed, this means I positively excel at being right-handed. But just as I am entertaining thoughts of winning the world championships for being right-handed, holding the trophy aloft over my right shoulder, my bubble is burst.
“Your shoulders and pelvis dip heavily to the right, so you compensate for that by making your stride longer on the left side.” Strides, you see, should be equal, half the length of your foot between the heel and toe. “You drop your weight forward when you walk. You are quite heavy-footed.” Heavy-footed? On the scale of insults, this must be up there with “big-boned” (and “very right-handed”).
Imagining I walk like the ape in stage one of the illustration of the evolution of man, I ask how I can rectify this – be more regal. The key, Broke-Smith says, is to “glide into the walk”, instead of “galloomphing”, as it would seem I do. “You have to clench your bottom,” she says, placing her hand on mine and pushing it in (goodness, I think – in any other line of work, such a move would get you a visit from HR). “That helps to propel you forward.”
The key is to imagine your body as two parts – so the hips and pelvis go forward, while the shoulders are pushed back. She pulls my head up, and tells me to pretend that I am attached to a puppet string. “But I can’t see the floor, or what I am stepping on!” I protest. Broke-Smith shoots me a look. I suppose that the people she teaches – debutantes, high-powered executives – don’t frequent the kind of places where one has to worry about what they are stepping on, or in. As she directs me forward, I worry that I will collapse like Bambi on the ice with Thumper. Somehow, I make it across the room.
Next, we try sitting, something I am usually very relaxed about. But in front of Broke-Smith, I have never been so nervous about putting my bottom on a chair. The way I do it – legs together, pointing out – is “too kneesy”. Instead, one should place their legs to the side, one foot placed demurely behind the other, revealing little more than a finely turned ankle. It is uncomfortable, but it does make you sit up straight.
Broke-Smith suggests that she teaches me how to take off a jacket. “People do the most dreadful things to jackets,” she announces, as if discussing war crimes. I politely turn down the offer, on account of the fact it is denim and crumpled and smells slightly of stale cigarettes. Perhaps, I ask, she could instead teach me how to get out of a car the Carole Middleton way.
Broke-Smith tells me that in her work teaching debutantes, she has “done” almost all of Prince William’s former girlfriends, which makes her sound like some sort of processing plant for the aristocracy. But she hasn’t met his wife and tells me she has never coached her mother – if she had, Mrs Middleton would never step out of cars the way she does.
“She has great legs,” says Broke-Smith, “but she hasn’t a clue what to do with them.” I gasp. How could she say this about the mother of the future Queen of England? The problem is explained. The divine Mrs Middleton doesn’t exit cars with her legs together, and neither do either of her daughters, judging from pictures.
The galloomphing fools! Even I can master this particular move, getting in and out of Broke-Smith’s vehicle with what I believe to be grace and dignity. Then again, I am in a Fiat Punto. And I manage to step out of it “correctly” only once, before returning to my normal, very right- handed self.
Oh well. Old dog, new tricks, as they say. I bid farewell to the charming Jean Broke-Smith, totter around the corner, and there, safely out of sight, I replace my heels with the battered pair of trainers I had hidden in my backpack."
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/kate-middleton/8834009/Etiquette-for-beginners-step-this-way-young-lady.html
Here is a related article:
"Bravo, Carole Middlton: the Duchess of Cambridge's mother steps from her car, grace and dignity intact": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/kate-middleton/8822296/Bravo-Carole-Middleton-the-Duchess-of-Cambridges-mother-steps-from-her-car-grace-and-dignity-intact.html
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