Prince William has addressed the coronavirus epidemic with a heartfelt video as he launches an appeal to help those suffering. Video / @kensingtonroyal
COMMENT:
What have you learnt about yourself during lockdown? Have there been any big surprises? I mean, real foundation-rockers like "I enjoy grouting", "turns out my beard isn't even on the same colour wheel as my hair" or "I married the wrong person"?
Aside the visceral hatred I now feel for moisture-exuding pavement runners incapable of observing the six-foot rule, what surprised me most was my reaction to a bitchy Twitter thread about Prince William yesterday.
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In a newly released video announcing the Duke of Cambridge's patronage of the National Emergencies Trust, the Prince had praised the public's response to the corona crisis, insisting that: "Britain is at its best, weirdly, when we're in a crisis: we all pull together."
Comforting words for many as we enter our fourth week in lockdown. And yet the Twitter vultures swooped. "What a stupid, intellectually challenged, brain-numbing s--- Prince William is. It's easy to think the UK is 'best in a crisis' from the privileged position of being protected from every crisis imaginable."
"Detached from reality in every way." "No Prince William, Britain is 'at its best' when we're an open, tolerant, accepting, liberated, internationalist society, not when we're all locked down at home by a deadly disease while being crippled in leadership by incompetent, exceptionalist, populist, nationalist stupidity."
And what a testament to that open, tolerant and accepting society the author of that last tweet is. Only it wasn't the fact that Twitter's a seething morass of illiberal liberals that surprised me, but how defensive I felt of Prince William in that moment.
"Good grief…" I heard myself mutter. Then, to my husband's raised eyebrow: "…I care about Prince William." There, I'd said it. "I mean, I think I may actually… be fond of him."
Despite being in awe of the Queen – who wouldn't be? – I'm not a commemorative royal mug owner. Like most people of my generation, I've never felt the need to 'pull out and keep' anything royal-related from newspapers or magazines, and when reporting from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding, I left the official goodie bag I was given (a goodie bag that later sold on eBay for $28,500) in a Windsor pub toilet.
It follows, therefore, that in the three and a half decades I've been aware of Prince William's existence, I've not felt strongly about him one way or another. Not when every woman in America was cooing over our little flaxen-haired heir; not when Britney Spears admitted to having a poster of the most eligible "teen bachelor" in the world on her wall.
Not when – during my gossip columnist years – I'd spy on him as he boozed the nights away behind the VIP cordon at Boujis nightclub, hoping in vain he'd do something if not wild, then at the very least ill-advised.
Not even when, reporting for US news channel, NBC, I stood outside Westminster Abbey on William's wedding day and watched him nervously flexing his white-gloved hands.
He was always well-intentioned – anyone could see that. But never the exciting one. Too predictable, too dependable for that. Only the values you set store by change as you get older, and at some point over the past few years, the Duke of Cambridge must have gone from being an indistinct figure in my peripheral vision to the rare and impressive individual I'm suddenly focussing on now.
Rare because you don't come across many solid, dutiful people of his age – both of those words doubtless considered insulting to generation me-me-me. And impressive because Prince William never has made it about him, or tried to become any more media-savvy than he has to be.
Which is part of his charm. Watch him praise the community spirit that has come "rushing back" in this latest video, and although he's got less shy and wooden over the years, he's still an awkward British male, with his back-of-the-neck scratches and his goofy smiles.
Self-consciousness and male vanity are luxuries when you're a working member of an institution that, whatever you think of it, has the power to rally, motivate and inspire: an institution people depend on. And you can laugh at that dependency, or indeed at Prince William for being "privileged", for being "protected" and for having lost his hair.
But it shows what the Duke stands for – what's at the core of the only royal British brand that matters, and matters now more than ever – and that's the ability to just get on with it.
