Kate's Gap Year: Working on a Boat

This is something I had heard long ago, but I thought I would share it, as a part of my digging into Kate's past, to determine what she's really like as a person, and if she's really a social climber as some people liked and like to say :)

So this is my attempt to develop my own opinion, based on "facts". I have to say that I always liked her, and thought she seemed very nice, and I think that I'm finding that I still think those things about her (even though I don't actually know her). However, I think I should take a look back at photos and written information (biased though it is) and take a more critical look, to potentially see something that I might not have wanted to see before.

Here is a an article about some of Kate's work experience in her gap year, when she was employed on a boat. I thought it was very interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1377487/Kate-Middletons-character-shaped-generations-social-climbing-matriarchs.html



First off, I don't care for the Daily Mail's title of this article. I just think it's trashy.

I have to say though that in this article I came away thinking that Kate was very reserved, but I found it odd that she would wear very "tight" shorts if she was so reserved in nature and so adamantly discouraged male admirers. However, it was probably the fashion at the time, and Kate has always been fairly current, albeit without being a fashionista (in my opinion at least). So the shorts probably didn't mean much. Originally I was thinking she might have wanted to be a tease but had no intentions to do anything but to see what power she could wield :)

This particularly interested me: "Another crew member says Kate ‘seemed rather prudish’ compared to the other girls, and because of it they played a joke on her. A dozen corporate male guests had filed aboard the boat and her job was to demonstrate how to use a life-jacket. It was rolled up and as she opened it half-a-dozen condoms fell out. The laughter was uproarious, but Kate was not amused."

Here I sort of struggled. The word prudish comes with negative connotations, and the prank suggests that some people might have wanted to hurt her due to negative feelings or envy. I could see her being a bit aloof, but is that her shy personality that we've read about from her school days, or is it snobbery? I'm assuming most of the other girls working aboard the boat were probably similar to Kate in their family backgrounds, but that's an assumption. And there are still many "well-to-do" people who think they are better than other "well-to-do" people. That's just life. So maybe they thought Kate was a snob?

But, in the same article we read about Kate looking down her shirt and screaming out: "they're growing!", indicating that her chest was developing. This doesn't seem prudish, or even shy. So I'm going to chalk the boat experience up to shyness and not knowing the people well enough to get over her feelings. If she didn't want to go out drinking with them, she probably did standout and was probably viewed as an outsider. And if she was considered good looking and re-buffed advances, then of course jealous feelings and ill feelings might have developed towards her. But it seems that the general opinion of Kate is that she gets on with things and does her work. And if she both worked and lived on this boat, she probably felt that being professional always was her key concern. And I can't blame her.

I'm going to take this article and say that I think that Kate could be seen as being aloof, due to her natural shyness and natural sense of maintaining certain levels of integrity in her personal and professional life. I am going to assume that introversion prevailed here and she is not a snob. Kate seems to be especially close to a few people in her life, and keeps others at arms length. She has been noted as not having a lot of friends, or female friends, and again, I can relate. I find that I like being with the few same people always, because they know me best and I am most comfortable living like that. And now, in her new role as Duchess, if Kate does feel this way it is even more understandable - who can you trust?!

I am not going to even really comment on the 20 pound note business. What we've heard about Kate's personality does not suggest that she would be so open about her plans to marry William to so many people, and especially those that she works with. The article even mentions how discreet she normally is. The fact that this article includes this information suggests that these people were not to be trusted with this information in the first place. And I think that after so many years the duchess would be wary to leak any information that could come back and look bad on her - or at least I would! I think this bit must be fabricated. Or else this makes me a bit suspect. It's fun to write out your crush's or boyfriends last name after your first name, but the drawing her face on the note goes a bit far I think. I think that Kate might have shared her feelings with her family, but not with friends. Most people don't even talk about these kinds of plans in their own lives! Or if they do it might be that they want to get engaged or hope to get engaged, but not so many details about the execution of it all! Especially if you were marrying into the royal family!

The part in the article about Kate urging William to stay at St. Andrews would probably be the natural reaction of anyone to a prince and someone they might not know well. Who would encourage him to do otherwise? I doubt it had much to do with her own personal feelings, but was just a natural reaction on her part to be kind and supportive.

So, again, I come out of this dis-believing some of this article. I think Kate is just a normal girl who eventually fell for William. She might have done some scheming, as any girl who liked a guy would (don't even get me started about what I've done!). But initially she would "scurry" away when she saw him. It would have been exciting for any girl I'm sure, to be going to school with a prince of England! And if she could have some fun dating him for a while, good for her! I doubt she went to bed at night dreaming of herself sitting on a throne! It would probably be quite scary to think about that.... at least for me anyways :)

There's my rant! It's probably more of a ramble too :)