Royal snapshots show the magic hand-me-down clothes bring
The first family pictures of Prince Louis have been released by Kensington Palace, and they show... a baby. In a pretty conceit, the photographs, taken by the Duchess of Cambridge, echo a picture she took of Prince Louis’ elder sister, Charlotte. In that image Prince George pressed a kiss on the head of his newborn sister, who was propped in his lap. Here Princess Charlotte kisses Prince Louis, whose resemblance to her infant self is emphasised by the fact that he is wearing the same cream leggings and jumper in which she was photographed. The princess, meanwhile, wears the Fair Isle pattern cardi worn by Prince George in the 90th birthday portrait of the Queen surrounded by her grandchildren. They are, in short, dressed in hand-me-downs.
Hand-me-down clothing is a thing among royal infants, who are traditionally Christened in a voluminous lace and satin robe made in 1841 for Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter (these days, a replica of the fragile original is used). Yet the Duchess of Cambridge’s prudent recycling of her children’s garments has been much remarked on – as though royal children might be expected to discard their clothes after a single wearing, like rap stars and their box-fresh trainers.
Sensible though it is to recycle baby clothes, most mothers would admit that they are motivated less by thrift than by an aching sentimentality. Childhood seems interminable to children, but for parents it vanishes in an instant, leaving behind only the tiny rompers and diminutive cardigans into which it seems impossible to imagine that the erstwhile baby – soon to be a toddler, a schoolchild and, in the blink of an eye, a hulking adolescent – ever fitted.
Yet, once they did, and for parents those little clothes are a reminder, more plangent than any photograph, of that magical time when we were just beginning to explore the fascinating enigma that is a new baby.
Thirty years ago, on a book stall by the Seine, I found the diaries of an artist who inspired the book that I am now writing. The bouquinistes of Paris are a centuries-old institution, but like all institutions, they are vulnerable to fashion. In theory they are confined to selling books, journals, postcards, prints and stamps; in practice, growing numbers have a profitable sideline in tourist tat. But now die-hard bouqinistes are applying for Unesco intangible cultural heritage status.
Times change, and we cannot force people to buy old books if they prefer plastic Eiffel Tower key rings. But some things are worth saving, and the fact is that books change lives, something with which an Eiffel Tower key ring could never be accredited.
Stressed students at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge are being encouraged to care for guinea pigs as a panacea for their anxieties. The role of animals in promoting mental health is well recognised, but of all companion creatures, the guinea pig is undoubtedly the dullest. Gentle and devoid of character, the guinea pig’s only distinctive trait is a faint whiffling noise. Not even those great writers Beatrix Potter and Michael Bond could imbue their fictional guinea pigs (Tuppeny and Olga da Polga respectively) with any hint of personality. But perhaps, among the clever Cambridge undergraduates, the guinea pigs’ lack of inner life is an essential part of their charm.