London: William and Kate have brought a more relaxed and personal approach to royal duties and are raising their children in relatively hands-on fashion, presenting a more modern vision of the monarchy for a new age.
The well-liked couple, formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, married in 2011 and have presented themselves and their three children – George, Charlotte and Louis – as a model family.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said they had “mastered both the formal and the informal” with carefully curated glimpses into their life on social media, in a clear break with the past and to satisfy constant press interest.
“They’ve been tremendously successful in protecting this mix of normality and royal status,” he told AFP.
William and Kate, both now 40, met while studying at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
At the time, the prince was considered a heartthrob, with his attendance massively boosting applications to the ancient Scottish university.
Like his uncle, Prince Andrew, brother Harry, and father Prince Charles, William opted for a military career, becoming an army officer in 2006.
He qualified as a Royal Air Force search and rescue helicopter pilot in 2009. After marrying Kate, he lived with her and young George, who was born in 2013, for several years in a rented farmhouse on Anglesey off the coast of northwest Wales.
William then switched to work as a civilian air ambulance pilot from 2015, living at Anmer Hall, on his grandmother’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England.
He became a full-time royal in 2017 and shifted the family’s base to an apartment in Kensington Palace, London.
The family moved to Adelaide Cottage at Windsor and this week all three children began at a nearby private school called Lambrook.
Charlotte and George previously attended a private day school in London where fees exceed £6,000 ($8,000, 7,000 euros) per term, while Louis went to a nursery.
Kate and William’s children are reportedly being raised to enjoy outdoor pursuits with limited screen time.
William vented about the difficulties of sharing home schooling duties with Kate during the coronavirus lockdown — albeit living in a 10-bedroom country house given to him by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
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