As we all know for the past eight to nine years; much has been discussed with regard to the background and heritage of Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, even to the point of discussing, dissecting, analyzing and arguing both sides of her family tree, with emphasis on paternal versus maternal.
A pronounced social schism was shown to be very much alive, especially in ‘Jolly Old England’ where no matter how blurred the lines have become, a certain amount of the division of social classes still exists.
No matter how hard he tried with his leveling view of Labour equality, former Prime Minister Tony Blair failed to create the classless society that had been his intent. Personally, the mere thought of a so called ‘classless society’ as an achievable and rational concept is a bit unrealistic and extremely short sighted at best.
If he had succeeded, Kate Middleton would have been the perfect poster child for his rather rarefied utopian view of how things could be. Since he was unsuccessful in foisting the full measure of his beliefs, society rose in response to the very idea of a girl who apparently didn’t know her place, and worse yet came from a set of like minded parents; a family not suitable to garner an alliance with the first family in the land.
Needless to say it was a rough patch for the girl in question and her family. Something that still occurs from time to time, even after the engagement!
As the date of Friday, April 29, 2011 looms large on the calendar, it is a time where if anything, recognition is owed to a woman who has clearly cast her all into a future with her prince. A woman who had the clear sighted vision to draw on the strength of the very middle class background and the stability that it afforded her, a background for which she and her family were eagerly derided over, to give her the mindset to achieve her end goal. Apparently, you can't keep a good woman down!
This esoteric will admit, as he has several times since the announcement of the engagement this past November, that this projected alliance bore all the hallmarks of a mistake. Over the past five to six months, the scales have fallen from my eyes and I realize with regard to Kate; that I too was a part of the ‘crowd’ that was not all that keen on Miss Middleton.
The past several months have made me aware of things that I had not bothered to address fully in the past, especially to with regard to here her family was concerned. My new view is polar opposite of the old one, and I could not be more pleased with his choice.
I predict when all is said and done, this woman from the countryside of Berkshire is going to change the face of the House of Windsor forever and for the better.
Simply cannot wait to take my seat at the Abbey!
Kate’s Newly
Minted ‘Heritage’
Kate Middleton gets her very own coat of arms in time for Royal Wedding and handily it can be used for the family business too.
By Richard Hartley-Parkinson
The Daily Mail
April 19, 2011
Kate Middleton today joined the ranks of nobility as her very own coat of arms was unveiled... and that could prove profitable for the family business.
The growing social status of the bride-to-be's parents has been reflected in the new insignia which will feature on the Royal Wedding souvenir programme.
In a canny move by her father, Michael Middleton, Kate's family will all be able to use the crest 'as he sees fit' including for their Party Pieces business as it was he who commissioned it.
The design released today incorporates an acorn sprig - one for each of the Middletons' three children - an idea suggested by Kate.
Garter Principal King of Arms and Senior Herald in England, Thomas Woodcock unveils the new Coat of Arms for Kate Middleton's family.
Kate Middleton's new coat of arms was unveiled yesterday, top, and it will appear on the back of the souvenir programme while William's, above, will be on the front.
The oak tree is a traditional symbol of England and strength, and is a feature of west Berkshire where the family have lived for more than 30 years.
At the centre of the coat of arms is an inverted 'v' or chevron coloured gold which represents Kate's mother Carole Middleton whose maiden name was Goldsmith.
Above and below this feature are white chevronels to symbolise peaks and mountains, reflecting the family's love of the Lake District and skiing.
Herald painter Robert Parsons sketches the new Coat of Arms, unveiled today.
The cover sheet of the souvenir Royal Wedding programme.
The design can be used by the Middletons howsoever they wish and if someone else uses it they can sue them at the Court of Chivalry which, apart from a case in 1954, hasn't been convened since 1732.
Thomas Woodcock, Garter Principal King of Arms, from the College of Arms in the City of London, sat down with Kate's parents to create the design which cost £4,400.
He said: 'It's not compulsory but as their daughter is marrying into the Royal Family she will have a need probably to use a coat of arms.'
He added that Miss Middleton could have been granted her own heraldic design but her father commissioned the College in his name so all the family could use it.
Mr. Woodcock added: 'The Middleton family particularly wanted acorns or oak and I think Catherine Middleton in particular was responsible for the idea of these oak sprigs.’
'The idea is that great trees grow from small acorns and the part of Berkshire in which the Middleton’s brought up their children there are a great many oak trees so it's something they associate with the upbringing of their children.’
'And in the centre you have what is known as a chevron and that has been made gold as Catherine Middleton's mother's maiden name was Goldsmith - so that's a suitable reference to her in the centre of the family.'
A version of the coat and arms which can only be used by Kate or her sister Pippa, as it denotes a Middleton spinster, will be printed on the back of the souvenir programme while William's will be on the front.
The booklet will include the wedding order of service and be available on the day of the nuptials.
Sketch: The coat of arms reflects many aspects of the life of the Middleton family.
Kate's heraldic design features a tied ribbon to show she is an unmarried woman and the overall shape is an elaborate lozenge - a shield would be used for Middleton men.
But Kate will only be able to use the coat of arms on letter headings and other items up until her wedding day on April 29.
Following the Westminster Abbey ceremony, the coat of arms of William and his fiancée will be combined - something known as 'impaled arms'.
Looking at the shield, the Prince's heraldic design will fill the left hand side and Kate's will be on the right.
Mr. Woodcock added: 'With any new design of a coat of arms you have to make sure that the design is distinct not just in colour but in the linear appearance and as there is a 16th century coat of arms with a chevron between three sprigs of oak we've made the differences - dividing the background colours.'
Regent Street: One of the main shopping streets in London has had Union Jacks all the way along the road
The unveiling of the coat of arms is among the final preparations being made across the country ahead of the royal wedding
Security is tight around central London ahead of the big day with detailed searches being carried out along the route of the wedding procession
Red and blue were chosen as the Garter Principal knew Kate's coat of arms would have to be combined with William's, which feature the same shades and the colours needed to complement each other.
Kate's brother James will be able to pass down the coat of arms to his children but Pippa, as a woman, will not but she can use it during her lifetime.
The formal legal document granting Mr. Middleton his coat of arms is written on vellum parchment decorated by a herald painter with the text written by a scrivener.
COMMON CAUSE Kate Middleton, flanked by her parents, Michael and Carole, at the Sovereign’s Parade at William’s graduation from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, December 15, 2006. By Tim Graham/Getty Images.
Meet the Parents
Under the intense British media spotlight, Kate Middleton’s family has been tagged as gauche climbers, their every misstep magnified. So why does Prince William like his soon-to-be in-laws so much? Talking to intimates of Kate’s entrepreneurial parents—the ambitious, fun-loving Carole and down-to-earth Michael—as well as friends of younger sister (and sometime rival) Pippa and flirtatious brother James, Katie Nicholl gets a closer look at the real Middletons.
By Katie Nicholl
Vanity Fair Magazine
April 2011
The very first time Catherine Middleton’s father, Michael, spoke to the press, it was to dispel rumors that his daughter, then an undergraduate at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, was romancing the future King of England. “We are very amused at the thought of being in-laws to Prince William, but I don’t think that is going to happen,” Kate’s amiable father told reporters from the doorstep of the family home in May 2003 when it first started circulating that the pair had become close. William and Kate were sharing a house in the center of St. Andrews and had been photographed walking to lectures together engrossed in conversation, prompting a flurry of speculation about their status, but they had insisted they were just friends. It was not long before the rumors resurfaced. The following month the Rat Pack (the nickname for the British press) descended on the village of Chapel Row in Bucklebury, Berkshire, once again. It was just days after Kate’s belated 21st-birthday party and news that the prince had been guest of honor had gotten out. When William’s black Volkswagen Golf crunched up the gravel drive to the Middletons’ wisteria-clad red-brick five-bedroom house on the night of the celebration, there was a palpable excitement among the well-heeled crowd. In the safe confines of her family home during the Christmas holidays, Kate had confided to her younger sister, Pippa, and her mother, Carole, that she and William were quietly dating. Carole was, according to friends, delighted. While Pippa, who is 20 months younger than Kate, was mingling in the right circles at the University of Edinburgh and dating JJ Jardine Paterson, handsome heir to the Hong Kong banking dynasty, Kate had landed a prince.
There had been plenty of sibling rivalry between the Middleton girls ever since their school days; at St. Andrew’s prep school, in the nearby village of Pangbourne, and at Marlborough, the exclusive private boarding school which all the Middleton children attended, Pippa was considered the more outgoing, sassier, and prettier of the two. But by the time Kate arrived at the University of St. Andrews, she had undergone a metamorphosis from a prim schoolgirl into an elegant and confident young lady who would be voted the prettiest girl of the year in her residence hall. Legend has it that it was Kate’s glamorous mother who persuaded her to enroll at St. Andrews after William announced he would be studying there. One of Kate’s Marlborough chums remembers that her first choice had in fact been the University of Edinburgh, where Pippa and Kate’s younger brother, James, later enrolled. The Middletons have never commented on the rumor (and sources close to the family dispel the theory as myth), but there is no doubt that Carole—born into a working-class family in Norwood Green, where she was raised in a council house—wanted the best for each of her brood. “It is all Michael and Carole have ever wanted, for their children to be successful and happily married, preferably into well-to-do families,” says a friend. “Never in their wildest dreams did they actually imagine one of them would marry into the royal family.”
Now the Middletons are to be in-laws to Prince William. Successful entrepreneurs with a £1 million home in the countryside, a multi-million-pound business, and three beautiful children, they are the envy of the upper classes. Good-looking, well spoken, and with enough acreage for their soon-to-be son-in-law to land his helicopter in the back garden, the Middletons may be former aviation staff (she was a British Airways air hostess, he was responsible for checking aircraft before takeoff) as opposed to aristocrats, but William adores them. He affectionately calls Kate’s father “Mike” and on occasion “Dad,” even though it is said to prickle Prince Charles. Meanwhile, Carole is so smitten that her mobile-phone screen saver is a picture of the prince.
Because they do everything together, friends call them the En Masse Middletons. They are a close-knit family, which is one of the reasons William loves spending time with them and has joined his future in-laws on several trips. The Middletons vacation fashionably and annually ski in France and holiday on Mustique—although often off-season, when the costs of renting a villa are lower. “William loves his holidays with the Middletons because they are so relaxed,” explains a friend. “He’s always saying how much fun Carole is. She’s very young in spirit and a great entertainer. One of her and Michael’s favorite after-dinner party jokes is announcing the flights coming into Mustique in their best air-steward voices as they dine alfresco. It always has William in hysterics.”
Back in Bucklebury, Carole’s Sunday-lunch roasts are legendary, and she always has William’s favorite red wine in the cellar. The house, which has a rustic feel to it, with pretty French-style linens and vases of fresh flowers from the garden, is comfortable and homey. Kate’s bedroom—where William is allowed to spend the night—is the same room she has had since she was a teenager. He regularly returns the hospitality, and Pippa and James are often invited on royal shooting weekends at Birkhall House, in Scotland, where they compete over who kills the most grouse. It is James, the family’s best shot, who usually wins. In October, Kate’s parents were invited to Prince Charles’s Scottish retreat for the first time, and William arranged for them to have a private shooting session. Although Charles was not in residence, it was a clear indication of how close William has become to his future in-laws. Kate, who is not a natural shot, prefers to walk and accompany William on such shoots. During weekends in London, William, Kate, Pippa, and James play tennis at the prestigious Harbour Club, in Chelsea, where William’s mother was a member, and drink at fashionable bars such as Maggie’s (the 80s-themed club owned by Prince William’s close pal Charles Gilkes) and the members-only Brompton Club. Recently, at Maggie’s, James was excitedly talking about the wedding plans. “It’s fair to say the wedding is the biggest thing in all of their lives—they are beyond excited,” says one of the pals who drank with James that night.
But while the Middletons have hit the jackpot as far as social status is concerned, the past eight years have not been easy. Carole and Michael have had to contend with being derided as “the Middle-Class Middletons” because of their backgrounds. Kate and Pippa suffered the indignity of being labeled “the wisteria sisters” by the press because they were “highly decorative, terribly fragrant and have a ferocious ability to climb.” Meanwhile, Carole was considered gauche for chewing gum at William’s Sandhurst “passing out” parade and came under fire for using the greeting “Pleased to meet you” instead of “How do you do?” Kate and William were equally mortified by the attacks on her family, to whom she is exceptionally close and of whom she is fiercely protective.
Michael Middleton—a handsome 61-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair, most comfortable in his country casuals—is the rock-steady grounding force in the family, the linchpin that keeps them together.
He is never happier than when he is with his family—the desire to be seen with the right sort of people eludes him. “Kate’s feet are still on the ground, largely because of Michael,” explains a family friend. “He doesn’t get too swept up in the grandeur of her new life, and Kate loves him for that. She gets a lot of her characteristics from him.”
The princess-to-be enjoys a particularly close bond with her mother. They love to visit art galleries and country fairs together, and they are often spotted shopping in Peter Jones on the King’s Road or having their hair styled at Richard Ward in Sloane Square. Dressed in her trademark tight jeans and knee-high boots, Carole is often mistaken for Kate’s sister, and she advises her daughter on new trends and styles. At a charity fund-raiser in the summer of 2009 it was Carole, not Kate, who made the front pages dressed in stilettos and a tight-fitting coral satin mini-dress. And as she readies herself for the wedding of the century, Carole is determined to be in the best possible shape. She is following the protein-based Dukan Diet, lunching on cottage cheese and prawns in a bid to shed pounds before the wedding, and who can blame her? She knows the world’s press will be analyzing her outfit and her every move, and she wants to look her very best. “At first Carole rather enjoyed the attention. She seemed to find the whole thing quite dizzying, but the constant nit-picking in the press did get to her,” recalls a family friend. The Middleton mantra is “Grin and bear it,” which is exactly what the family has done.
“In the village we are very protective. There’s a lot of camaraderie towards the Middletons,” says neighbor Lynda Tillotson, a friend of Carole and Michael’s, who runs L. Interiors, a pretty shop in Chapel Row that sells scented candles and Nina Campbell wallpaper and fabrics. “I think they have coped amazingly well, given the attention. Since the engagement there have been cameras and TV crews here all the time, but it doesn’t seem to faze them. Carole was in here the other day buying candles and she was in great spirits. She’s a great-looking woman, who is always very relaxed, lively, and outgoing. I enjoy her company immensely. Michael is a lovely man, very calm and kind. There’s not much in the village, just my shop and the butcher and a pub, so we are a community. We have a village fête where we all get together on the green, and Michael and Carole are very supportive of us all. They shop at the butcher’s next door and drink in the local pubs. But they are businesspeople, and most of the time Carole’s at her desk working hard.”
It is this work ethic which has made the Middletons the success they are. In addition to the family pile, they own an £800,000 pied-à-terre in Chelsea, which they reportedly bought with cash in 2002. But life hasn’t always been so comfortable. While William’s ancestors were raised in palaces, Carole’s were coal miners from Durham; her great-grandfather Thomas Harrison worked in the pit. “Carole was determined to improve herself. She got her drive and ambition from her mother, Dorothy Goldsmith, who set her family on the road from poverty to prosperity,” says Claudia Joseph, who traces the family ancestry in her book Kate: The Making of a Princess. “Carole’s father was a trucker and then a builder. He had the skills, but Dorothy had the aspiration. They managed to get on the property ladder and do well for themselves. Dorothy was nicknamed Lady Dorothy by the rest of her family because they became gentrified.”
Kate’s father, Michael, came from a more privileged background; his ancestors were wealthy wool merchants from Yorkshire who left a considerable trust fund which enabled Michael and his three brothers to be educated privately. His grandmother Olive Lupton was an Edwardian society beauty with impeccable family connections which, it turns out, link Kate to William—they are distant, 17th cousins through Sir Thomas Fairfax. (Oliver Cromwell served briefly as his second-in-command during the English Civil Wars.) When her father died, Olive Lupton and her sister inherited the equivalent of £9.8 million today, some of which was handed down to Michael’s father, Peter, a pilot who served with the R.A.F. during World War II, and his wife, Valerie, who was a homemaker.
Today the Middletons are firmly middle-class, although there are questions over exactly how much the family business is worth. In 1987, Carole set up Party Pieces, a mail-order firm which sells inexpensive party paraphernalia, in the playroom of their home, a four-bedroom cottage in the village of Bradfield Southend, in Berkshire. Profits soared—especially when the company launched its Web site, in 2002—and Michael and Carole had enough money to send all three children to private school and, in 1995, to move to Chapel Row
.
Kate recalls an idyllic childhood and has said that one of her fondest memories is an “amazing white rabbit marshmallow cake that Mummy made when I was seven.” Carole’s friend Lynda Tillotson, who bought Party Pieces goody bags for her own children’s birthdays, says, “Carole was the brains behind the business. She knows what she is doing and she knows where she is going.” Her Land Rover Discovery is frequently parked outside the Party Pieces offices, a converted cow barn piled high with cartons containing party hats, streamers, and at one time even cheap imitations of Kate’s sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring, which sold for $5.
Until recently, all three children worked for the family business. After a brief stint as part-time fashion-accessories buyer for the clothing chain Jigsaw, Kate joined her parents’ firm in 2007. A keen photographer, she spent the next three years sourcing party products and overseeing the Web site before she officially stepped down in January to prepare for the wedding.
Pippa, who divides her time between London and Bucklebury, edits “The Party Times,” the company’s online newsletter, and she works part-time for the London-based events company Table Talk.
She and Jardine Paterson split in 2007 after a three-and-a-half-year courtship. Pippa then briefly dated Scottish aristocrat Billy More Nesbitt and diamond heir Simon Youngman. Last year she was seen stepping out with handsome entrepreneur Charlie Gilkes. She is currently dating former cricketer Alexander Guy Rushworth Loudon, and the relationship is said to be serious. Loudon, who now works in finance, fits the bill—he’s a dashingly handsome, 30-year-old former Etonian whose family has an impressive stately home in Kent called Olantigh. “Pippa has always had high standards, but she is ready for a serious relationship,” observes a friend with whom she socializes regularly. “Ideally her date has to be wealthy and clever, and preferably he’ll have a double-barrel surname. It will help that she is now the most sought-after singleton in London.” The friend continues: “Pippa’s a great networker, like her mother. At Edinburgh she made sure she hung out with the right crowd.”
After abandoning his English literature course at Edinburgh, 23-year-old James set up Cake Kit, a cake-making company associated with Party Pieces. James is something of a flirt on the social scene, but he has never had a long-term relationship with any of the society beauties he is often seen out with. “James is very good-looking and likes to flirt,” says a chum. “He dropped out of Edinburgh, where he was studying English, after a year. He was a big drinker and loved to party, but he was more interested in drinking and going shooting than girls.”
Two years ago he publicized the company in Hello! magazine by posing with 21 home-baked cakes—each with a different Hello! cover, including one of the late Princess of Wales. It was seen as shamelessly cashing in on his royal connections, and it was the first and last time James gave an interview. But this was not the first time he had landed himself in hot water. He had embarrassed Kate in 2008 when pictures of him dressed up in one of her frocks and wearing makeup were posted on the Internet.
In April 2009, when he was celebrating his 22nd birthday with his family in London, he was so drunk he urinated in the street. The photographers had a field day, and while Kate, Pippa, and Michael walked ahead, Carole tried to shield her son from the cameras.
It was the same lioness-like instinct Carole demonstrated when the newspapers exposed her brother, Gary Goldsmith, as a drug user who was living the high life on Ibiza in a £5 million villa nicknamed “La Maison de Bang Bang.” A British Sunday newspaper secretly filmed Gary cutting lines of cocaine and boasting of his royal connections. Carole was furious and immediately booked the family on a flight to Mustique to escape the media storm. “Carole was devastated, and closed ranks. James and Pippa were told to keep a lower profile,” says a friend. “Carole didn’t want anything reflecting badly on Kate.”
The storm passed and Kate emerged unscathed, largely because none of the family would comment on the scandal. Meanwhile, Gary has been slowly welcomed back into the Middleton fold and is on the provisional guest list for the wedding.
According to Michael Evans, manager of the Polynesian-themed bar Mahiki, in London’s Mayfair, when the Middleton siblings are out, they are impeccably behaved. “They queue up like everyone else and pay at the end of the night. There is always a table for them, and Pippa and James often order the zombie cocktail, which is served aflame and contains absinthe. Kate usually sips a piña colada. They let their hair down, but they are always reserved. I think they were aware of the fact that they had a reputation to uphold.”
When I met Pippa and James at a party at the suitably regal Lancaster House two years ago, they were like rabbits in headlights. Pippa, laundry-fresh in a lemon-yellow dress, hovered awkwardly by the dessert table as her brother gallantly fended off photographers and gossip columnists. “I really want to promote my company, but I have to be careful,” he told me over a glass of champagne at the bar. “I work really hard—we all do, and I love what I do—but I can never talk about my sister.” It wasn’t just Kate who was navigating a tightrope—everyone in the family was on tenterhooks.
As a result of the engagement, the Middletons will be in the spotlight evermore. They are photographed leaving and entering their home and have had to get used to having round-the-clock police protection when Kate is in residence. Carole is busily involved with wedding plans, having been assured by William that she and Michael are to be included in their big day. They have been told that their extended family and friends will be welcome at the wedding. Carole has been spotted with Pippa at the Knightsbridge-based atelier of the Princess of Wales’s favorite designer, Bruce Oldfield, prompting speculation that Kate has chosen her bridal gown and bridesmaids’ dresses. The Middletons will be paying for it; they have been allowed to make a six-figure financial contribution toward the royal wedding, which is unusual. Traditionally it is the royal family alone who meets the cost. “It is something they absolutely wanted to do, and William graciously accepted,” confirms a senior aide. The Middletons will no doubt be as apprehensive as they are excited about April 29. The thought of his daughter marrying William might have once “amused” Michael Middleton; today it is a reality which has changed his family’s lives forever.
As A Society,
We Still Mistrust The Upwardly Mobile
By Jenni Russell
The Telegraph
April 18, 2011
In 11 days, a girl who is neither an aristocrat nor a member of the landed classes will marry a future King of England. It's a match that has been defined as the triumph of the middle class, and a sign that Britain's class divisions are eroding. I wish that were true. It's not.
Nothing in the past four years has so exposed Britons' obsessions with policing class boundaries as the coverage of Catherine Middleton's family, wealth, upbringing and ancestors. The undertone of much of it has not been celebratory, but incredulous and indignant.
Newspapers have dwelt endlessly on the fact that her family tree includes coal miners, domestic servants, road sweepers and butchers. Her origins are described as humble and her mother, in a single disdainful adjective, as pushy.
Careful distinctions have been drawn between her mother's background and her father's. Carole Middleton was born in a council flat in London and had a Saturday job in a chain store as a teenager. Carole's mother, who married a man who had left school at 14 but who wanted a different life for her offspring, was, we have been told, "full of airs and graces", and was consequently known by her in-laws as Lady Dorothy.
There is far less criticism of her father, or his family. He comes from a background described as "solid"; lines of provincial solicitors and landed gentry. The worst that is said of him is that he is self-made. We read - and who knows whether it is true, or simply journalistic projection - that the Queen disapproves of Mrs. Middleton, a former air hostess, while having a "soft spot" for her husband, a former pilot.
The implication of this is clear. Michael Middleton is more acceptable to commentators because he hasn't had the temerity to go on a long social journey himself. Born middle class, he has simply made enough money from the party goods business he and his wife established to give his children an upper-middle-class education. Most of the sneering has been reserved for Carole and her relations, for first attempting and then succeeding in being socially mobile.
That hostility was given full vindictive rein in 2007, when William and Kate, as she was then known, split up for several months. The glee with which the press turned on Carole, Kate and Kate's sister Pippa was shocking. The restraint that journalists and society sources had publicly observed while Kate appeared to be a potential member of the royal family disappeared overnight.
The Middleton women were mocked for having dared to date dukes and princes. Unnamed sources alleged that Mrs. Middleton was a gum-chewing, gauche social climber, and that behind her back she was known as "doors to manual", a reference to her air-hostess past. It was reported that she had met the Queen and had horrified her by using the words "toilet" and "pleased to meet you". Since no meeting had ever taken place, this could not have been true; that didn't stop it being gleefully repeated.
Pippa was accused of scheming to secure a wealthy husband by flat-sharing with the sons of dukes, and by dating the English heir to a Hong Kong fortune. Anonymous society mothers claimed to be warning each other about the ferocious ambitions of two girls who wanted to marry above their station. In what was seen as another coded condemnation, Tatler described the two sisters as "very determined". There was faint praise for the Middletons' younger brother, James, but only as a vehicle for criticising his relations. He was described in one paper as "a lovely boy and the only one in the family not obsessed with moving up the social ladder".
Those comments sum up the terrible contradiction at the heart of the British attitude to class and opportunity, and one that's not just the preserve of those at the top. It is two decades since John Major declared us to be a classless society.
This Government and the one before it have made social mobility, and the potential to lead a life other than the one you happen to be born into, one of its missions. David Cameron has declared - in defence of his own Etonian past - that it's not where you come from that matters but where you're going to.
Few people would publicly admit to opposing that idea. Yet when individuals attempt that journey, they are frequently the objects of suspicion and scrutiny. They may be privately ridiculed for not knowing the rules of the class they are joining.
If they do learn how to speak and behave, they are accused of being inauthentic - this month one paper reported that when Carole Middleton has spent an evening enjoying herself, "the accent slips". And even when they educate their children faultlessly in the attitudes and behaviours of their new tribe, as the Middletons have done, that's still not enough; Kate's labouring forebears are somehow seen as ghostly presences, detracting from the reality of her existence as a girl brought up to have all the habits, pleasures and speech patterns of the upper middle class.
The process of social acceptance is, it seems, glacially slow as research by economic historians confirms. Professor Greg Clark demonstrated last month that although Britain is socially mobile, it takes 350 years for a rich family to return to average income, or for a poor one to rise to it. Families whose ancestors were wealthy in 1858 are still four times richer than those whose ancestors were poor at the same date.
Codes of behaviour are how the privileged defend themselves against the competitive intrusion of newcomers. It's a way of making sure that the rewards on offer to the lucky few don't get too widely shared. But our society pretends that this isn't what's going on. Social mobility is discussed as if it is principally a matter of wealth or qualifications.
We look back and marvel at the sumptuary laws which were part of British life for centuries, with their detailed rules about which ranks in society were permitted to wear purple, or silk, velvet or wool. Those laws were created to identify a person's class at a glance. I wonder whether we, who claim to be a meritocracy, are really so different. We praise social mobility, but criticise social climbers - so where, exactly, do we stand?
NR
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