A very middle class baby who will secure the future of the royal family
So, we can stop holding our breath. The eagerly awaited arrival has at last taken place.
After all those days on tenterhooks, the nation is about to meet a royal child who seems certain to change the face of the British monarchy for ever.
Kate and William?s son enters this world as a Royal Highness, destined one day to occupy the throne of this country.
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His mother?s official title is Her Royal Highness Princess William, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, Baroness Carrickfergus. But those grandiose ceremonial styles cannot disguise the fact there has never been a royal child quite like Kate?s.
For though William can trace his descent from a long line of monarchs, this baby boy?s maternal grandparents, Carole and Michael Middleton, once worked for British Airways, and are now firmly and publicly ?in trade? with their mail order company Party Pieces.
Kate?s ancestry on her father?s side is Leeds-based woollen cloth merchants and manufacturers, while on her mother?s side she is descended from working-class labourers and miners from Sunderland and County Durham. Carole herself was raised in a council flat.
?From the pit to the Palace in three generations!? cracked one courtier bitchily, reflecting on the amazing transformation of the Middleton family fortunes.
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