Please sir! Your face looks very familiar...
Kate reunited with teachers
SHE hadn’t seen them since she was just 14.
But the Duchess of Cambridge instantly recognised two of her former prep school teachers when they greeted her on a visit to South Wales yesterday.
Kate hugged Denise EvansAlford and Kevin Alford – who had taught her and siblings Pippa and James Middleton – as she toured the Mumbles in Swansea with Prince William.
The couple taught Kate at St Andrew’s Preparatory School in Pangbourne, Berkshire. Yesterday the couple drove from their home in Carmarthen and passed a note explaining who they were to a police officer, who informed Kate and sent her scurrying out from Joe’s Ice Cream Parlour to hug them. ‘It’s such a small world,’ Kate exclaimed, before reminiscing about her days there. ‘I want to instil in my children the life I had at St Andrew’s.’
Mr Alford, who taught French and German, said: ‘It was wonderful she gave us so much time. We saw her last when she and Pippa came back to school to visit James; she was 14. Obviously we’ve been following her career. She was in a wonderful class of girls and they got on so well together.’
Mr Alford said he enjoyed teaching Kate and the other pupils in her class so much that he asked to do so for an extra year. Both teachers said how much Kate had liked her time at the prep school.
Mrs Evans-Alford, who taught
PE, said: ‘She loved it so much. We had such a fantastic time there. She was in my netball team and rounders team. She was wonderful. She hasn’t changed a bit, you can tell.’
Kate attended St Andrew’s between the ages of four and 13, from 1986 to 1995, and has previously spoken of how much she adored her time at the £16,950-a-year school.
Opening a new hockey pitch in 2012, she described her time at St Andrew’s as some of the ‘ happiest years of my life’.
Despite some blustery weather yesterday, the Cambridges received a warm welcome in South Wales. They travelled on to the Tata Steel works in Port Talbot, which William’s parents, Charles and Diana, visited when he was three.
The couple donned hard hats and protective glasses as they were shown round the huge industrial site where 600 tons of steel are made every day.
William talked to some of the workers of their fears about the industry amid a global steel crisis as China dumps massive quantities on to the market.
Shaun Tobin, who has worked for the company since 1979 and whose son is the fourth generation worker at the site, said: ‘It means a lot that the Duke and Duchess have come here. We need support to safeguard jobs.’
‘In a wonderful class of girls’