Kate (4 page)

Living in a different country and becoming part of the local community, getting to know a different way of life, the two and one-half years in Jordan were some of the happiest years of Michael and Carole's lives, but in the summer of 1986, Michael's transfer came to an end. And so, the adventure over, Carole, Michael, Kate, and Pippa returned home.

CHAPTER 2

Moving Up in the World

M
OVING BACK
to Bradfield after living in Amman was something of a culture shock for the Middletons. Britain was not in great shape. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was running the Conservative Party with an iron fist, having secured a major political victory over Arthur Scargill and his National Union of Mineworkers. While the Middletons had been overseas, the miners' strike had changed not only the political panorama of the country but the physical landscape of the north of England, Wales, and Scotland, all of which suffered terrible social and economic depression when twenty mines closed within a year and took 20,000 jobs with them. These closures had a dramatic impact on working-class Britain, and the Middletons were returning in a time of tumult and despair, especially in the north of England where Carole's great-grandfather, John Harrison, had once made a living working the very mines that were being shut down.

However, at the same time, trouble was also brewing in the already volatile Middle East, in Lebanon. Across the border from Amman, the British TV journalist John McCarthy had been kidnapped in Beirut by Islamic Jihad terrorists that April, so coming home was, in the end, something of a relief for Carole and Michael. Shortly after they got back, Carole was delighted to discover she was pregnant again. With two little girls already, both she and Michael were hoping their third child would be a boy to complete their family.

Kate, who was by now four years and eight months old, had grown into a delightful little girl. She was tall for her age, with curly hair, bleached blonde from her years in the sun. Ever since they had left Jordan, she had counted down the number of sleeps until her first day at school.

The Middletons were fortunate enough to be able to draw on the trust fund that had been set up solely for the education of the family's ongoing generations. Like his father and grandfather, Michael had gotten his high school education at the fee-paying Clifton College, in Bristol, and had thrived there both academically and on the sports field. Carole's schooling had been less privileged. Her parents had not been able to afford to send her to an affluent school. Instead, she attended the local public school, Featherstone High School. Former head teacher Alfred Borg remembered her as “quite bright, but [she] did not stand out academically. That said, she was very well-behaved and beautifully mannered.” Although the school was not able to offer the same facilities as Clifton, the young and popular Carole was an avid musician and played cornet with the school brass band, making friendships that would last to this day. Later, her parents managed
to scrape together enough money to send Carole on a school trip to Austria with the rest of the band.

Although the Middleton inheritance spanned generations, there was still money left in the pot for Michael and Carole's children's education, and they both recognized that a good education provided the building blocks for success in later life. St. Andrew's Prep filled the bill. It was small, with just three hundred pupils, and had a Christian foundation and ethos. Perhaps more important to the Middletons, it was also a “feeder” school for some of the best independent schools in the country. According to the headmaster, Dr. Acheson, Kate threw herself into daily activities as soon as she arrived. The school's motto, “Altiora Petimus” (We Seek Higher Things), encouraged an emphasis on pastoral care, playing, and making friends. The children enjoyed trips to local farms, going on nature trails, and looking after the school's guinea pigs, Pip and Squeak, nicknames that were then given to Kate, who was known as Squeak, and to Pippa, known as Pip when she later joined the school. Kate loved to climb the trees on the grounds, and her sports instructor, Denise Allford, remembered her “tearing around the place. She was a one-hundred-m.p.h. girl.” On sports day, when the children were allowed to wear fancy dress as a special treat, Kate showed off the speed and agility that would years later see her win medals and cups. “Catherine joined us in Reception when she was four. The philosophy at the school was the same throughout: if children aren't happy they won't learn and they won't grow into rounded adults. We treated them as individuals from the start and encouraged them to develop their skills. Catherine was a delight to teach right from the start,” said Dr. Acheson. “As a
four-year-old she did as she was told and worked hard. I think a lot of that was down to the parents. They worked jolly hard when they got back from Amman. I get a bit fed up when people describe Carole as pushy—she wasn't. Like all good parents she wanted the best for her children.”

While in Amman, Carole had mulled over the idea of setting up a small home business. Before leaving, she had helped a number of local mothers throw birthday parties for their children and, while abroad, realized that she had spotted a gap in the market. Shortly after her return, she decided the time was right to launch a mail-order children's party business that would sell everything a host could possibly need, sent straight to the customer. Carole was an expert at throwing themed birthday parties for her own children, and her party bags were locally renowned. Initially, she sold the party bags at St. Peter's Church Hall in the village, where Audrey Needham, chair of the preschool play group, helped get her budding business off the ground. According to Mrs. Needham's widower, Alan Needham, who was then the church warden, “Audrey bought about twenty bags for the children in the preschool one Christmas, and they went down very well. I remember that party bags were big in America then, but not so much in the UK then. It was a clever idea, and Carole was very ahead of her time.”

Carole would pack the brightly colored bags with plastic toys, party bubbles, Wiz candy, foam planes, party streamers, and balloons at her kitchen table. The other mothers were relieved not to have the pressure of having to pack their own party bags, and Carole was delighted to be able to help out and make a bit of cash on the side. “I came up with the idea for Party Pieces when I was looking for party paraphernalia for my
own children's parties,” Carole recalled. “It was impossible to find anything easily in the shops, and trying to find value for party bag presents was a complete nightmare.”

It was a case of word of mouth, and Carole's party bags became so sought after that she could no longer continue packing them at the kitchen table. She decided to empty out the shed in the garden and use it as a small office, with Michael helping by installing a heater and an electric light. He was a talented carpenter, often helping around the house and doing small jobs for some of their neighbors. Eager to help his pregnant wife, he spent a weekend extending the shed to accommodate the boxes of stock that Carole was ordering daily. “We are the original UK mail-order party company—starting from a shed in the back garden in 1987,” Carole explained years later. “We have come a long way since then, but we are still very much a family business; I am still actively involved and love sourcing and developing new party products.”

Party Pieces was an obvious and clever idea that required very little investment, and with her creative flair and entrepreneurial skills, Carole found that her business quickly thrived. By now Kate and Pippa were both attending pre-prep school, so it was the perfect way for Carole to fill her days before the new baby arrived. George Brown recalled, “Carole started Party Pieces in the garden shed. It was before James was born, and I would see her taking boxes down to the post office herself. Then suddenly the business took off and the shed was packed to the ceiling with bits and bobs. She was wonderful when it came to throwing parties, and she was always very clever when it came to making up party bags. I remember Catherine's fifth birthday party, which she did at the house. Carole did everything from start to finish, and everyone got wonderful
bags to take home. I think Carole wanted to keep busy. She wasn't good at sitting around and doing nothing.”

Certainly now with three young children to look after—a longed-for baby boy, James William Middleton had arrived on April 15, 1987, thus completing the family—resting on her laurels would not be an option. What had started as a small and local project soon snowballed. Carole's brother, Gary, had advised her to put Party Pieces online. According to one family member, “Gary told Carole to stop selling paper party bags from home and get them on the Net. Carole was reluctant and said, ‘Mums don't use the Internet.' Eventually she gave in and decided to set up an online company called Party Pieces.” The canny move proved to be the making of the Middletons' fortune. Party Pieces became so successful that Michael handed in his notice at British Airways so that he could also get involved, and Carole leased an office space in the nearby village of Yattendon because they needed more room. She got Kate and Pippa to model the goods, which included personalized T-shirts, and posted the pictures on the company's website. “I remember by then Michael had had enough at British Airways and didn't really like his job much, so he gave it up to help Carole out. He was a good man and very competent,” said George Brown. As with starting any business, there were some stumbling blocks at the outset, and at the time, setting up an online business was a relatively new idea. According to Martin Fiddler, “At the start they had problems like everyone else; it was a slow starter but they kept working at it, and it paid off. They were 100 percent in it together. Mike and Carole are a real team.”

Three years after she launched the business, Party Pieces started selling its signature party-themed boxes, which contained everything you needed for an at-home birthday party. “Way back in 1990 we launched our first in-house designed boxes,” Carole revealed in a rare interview. “They were such a hit with everyone that now we try and make sure we have party boxes to go with every party theme.” She admitted that she worked around the clock: “It's great fun but not for the fainthearted,” she said. “I still work through to the early hours to hit a deadline and never take our success for granted. Your child's birthday is always a very special occasion so I think everyone tries to do something to celebrate the day even if money is tight. We've always believed that parties do not have to be lavish and expensive occasions and have always selected wonderful traditional and inexpensive games, tableware and activities.”

According to Carole's brother, the business was so successful that Carole soon became a millionaire. Gary told the United Kingdom's
Daily Mail
that, “No one seems to have picked up on the fact that both my sister and I were millionaires before we turned thirty.” He had made $25 million when he sold his shares in a UK-based IT recruitment business. “She with her Party Pieces business and me with my company.” By the end of 1986, Carole was thirty-one and very possibly a millionaire. Because Party Pieces is a private partnership, the accounts are not publicly accessible, but there was no doubt that the Middletons' finances were flourishing. They traded their old estate car in for brand-new Land Rover Discovery and started looking for a bigger house. Dr. Acheson recalled the business doing well within a short period of time
after they returned from Jordan: “Things took off for them, but they worked very hard.”

It was around this time that Carole suggested to her parents, Ronald and Dorothy, that they move from Norwood Green to Pangbourne. Carole was close to her mother and father, and as they got older, she wanted them to be nearer so they could spend time with their grandchildren. Financially, the Middletons were also in a position to put some money toward a property for them. Through a local estate agent in Bradfield, they found a charming cottage situated on the bank of the River Pang, overlooking the water and a little wooden bridge. It was chocolate-box pretty, and Ron and Dorothy fell in love with the cottage as soon as they saw it. But leaving Southall was a life-changing move for the retired couple, and they had a change of heart at the last minute. “They backed out of the sale and I told them they were mad,” said Dudley Singleton, who eventually managed to sell them the property after much persuasion. “They were worried it didn't have a garage and the gardens were small. I told Ron he was silly not to buy the house, and they did say on many occasions afterwards, ‘Thank God you persuaded us to buy it.' Dorothy was very strong-willed, just like Carole. She had second thoughts, but it turned out to be the perfect house and they were very happy. They made new friends in Pangbourne, went for long walks, and were often seen together at the local pub. They loved it, and the move and the house was right for them.” Dorothy, who had worked as a shop assistant throughout her life, found a part-time job at WH Smith a few doors down in Pangbourne, and Ron spent Saturday afternoons with his grandchildren once they had finished games at school. On
Sundays, the whole family would get together for a roast lunch at the local pub.

Even in Pangbourne, Dorothy had made an impression on the locals and was known by her nickname “the duchess”: “The one thing I would say about Dorothy is you would never have known she came from a working-class background in the north. She had a good speaking voice and a lovely manner, which is why she was nicknamed the duchess,” said Mr. Singleton. “She was always well turned out and very much Carole's mother. She was a strong-minded lady with a lot of natural charm that Carole inherited. Ron was a very nice man, very gentle, a bit like Michael. He didn't have a strong personality like Dorothy.” Once a year, Ron and Dorothy, and Michael's parents, Peter and Valerie, who lived in Hampshire, were invited to Kate and Pippa's school for Grandparents' Day, when the children would perform plays and concerts. “They would come into the classrooms, and the children would put on concerts and productions and recite poetry for them. Ron and Dorothy were always there to watch them,” recalled Mrs. Allford, who taught girls' sports and, later, was their housemistress. “Dorothy was tall and statuesque—you noticed her. She was always made up. Ronald was very low key; he was such a lovely man, he had a twinkle in his eye, and when I met James, I always saw a bit of Ron in him.”