'No one noticed': The Duchess of Kent on her 13 years as an incognito teacher

'Only the head knew who I was. The parents didn't know and the pupils didn't know. No one ever noticed. There was no publicity about it at all - it just seemed to work'. Photo / Getty Images

It was the simplest of gestures but when the Duchess of Kent put her arm around a tearful Jana Novotná at the Wimbledon Ladies' singles final in 1993, royalty had rarely appeared more relatable. As the trophy was handed to two-time defending champion Steffi Graff, her Czech opponent was inconsolable. "I remember it very well indeed," the Duchess smiles, recalling the scene on Centre Court, almost 30 years later.

"How could you go up to someone and say: 'Oh, bad luck!' It was awful for her. She was crying so she got a hug, quite rightly."

Although Diana, Princess of Wales, may have perpetuated the art of sympathetic sovereignty, it was pioneered by her Kensington Palace neighbour, Katharine Kent, back in the 1960s, after she married the Queen's cousin Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent.

Now 89, the grandmother has invited the Telegraph to Wren House, the couple's London home, to reflect on a royal life less ordinary. Dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and corduroy trousers, it is the Duke, 86, who greets me at the door of the wisteria-clad cottage, where the papered walls are peppered with touching family photographs.

Katharine - as she insists on being called - is waiting in an armchair in the sitting room, where a copy of the Telegraph, the FT and the Radio Times are fanned across a coffee table in front of a large television. Shelves are stacked with colourful hardback books, while what appears to be a relatively modern "hifi" sits in an open cupboard, reflecting Katharine's lifelong love of music.

Having dispensed with her HRH title when she stepped back from public life, 20 years ago, the self-styled "Yorkshire lass" insists that I pour myself a coffee from a pre-prepared pot before settling down for what proves to be a remarkably candid chat.

Over the years, Katharine has been much misunderstood, amid false suggestions that she relinquished her royal duties in 2002 because she was a recluse, suffering from agoraphobia. The reality could not be further from the truth. As she explains, the real story behind her dispensing with plaque unveilings and tree plantings was to spend 13 years teaching music at Wansbeck Primary School in Hull instead.

The Duchess consoles Jana Novotna after the 1993 Wimbledon final. Photo / Getty Images

"I was just known as Mrs Kent," she says, having clearly relished the anonymity of it all.

"Only the head knew who I was. The parents didn't know and the pupils didn't know. No one ever noticed. There was no publicity about it at all - it just seemed to work.

"Why, I don't know, but it just did. I taught children from the youngest possible age right until the end of primary school.

"I took them out into Hull. I had a little choir and they sang in the hospital. A lot of the children came from single-parent families and very deprived areas. It was very, very rewarding because even children from really tough backgrounds - the music did such wonderful things. It really did. They would get up and sing solos. I don't remember a child ever saying they didn't want to do their music."

Katharine would travel, from London by train, to the school on the once crime-ridden Longhill estate to teach music every Friday, before returning home in the evening. She insists that she "doesn't remember how I got to Hull," but as her friend Nicholas Robinson, co-founder of Future Talent, the charity Katharine set up 18 years ago, explains: "It was around 1993 when the headmistress invited her to see the school and one of the teachers explained how she was struggling to teach music because she wasn't very musical. Katharine being Katharine said: 'Shall I come and help you?' And that's how it started. She went in for one lesson and stayed there for 13 years. As far as I know she only ever missed two days."

Katharine took on the role with the Queen's full support. "There was nothing that I felt I wanted to hide away from," she insists. "It was just something that happened in my life. I was always ... I wouldn't say proud of it, but I was glad I did it. I was supported through it as well. The Queen said: "Yes, go and do it,' so I did."

As well as teaching the children how to sing, Katharine would arrange school concerts - something they had never experienced before.

She also took them to see Sir Mark Elder conduct a rehearsal of the Halle Orchestra, where he has been musical director since 2000, as well as attending a concert at Westminster Abbey, where HM was also present.

"We did all sorts of things together. When we went to the Halle they were fascinated by it. It didn't mean a thing to them to meet Mark Elder but they were interested in the instruments and wanted to play them.

"I remember when we went to Westminster Abbey we sat at the back and one of the children spotted the Queen and wanted to run up to her."

She puts on a Northern accent: "'Allo Queen!' she would have said, so I had to hold her back. They'd never left Hull so Westminster Abbey was quite something for them."

Witnessing talented children held back from pursuing their musical dreams due to a lack of money inspired Katharine to set up Future Talent in 2004 to "break down barriers, create opportunities and harness the power of music to transform lives across the UK."

Helping gifted young musicians from low-income backgrounds to flourish, the charity awards grants of up to £2,000 a year for instruments and tuition, as well as providing expert masterclasses, workshops, one-to-one mentoring sessions and performance opportunities.

Determined for it not simply to be a grant-giving body, Katharine tapped up a number of musical greats to become ambassadors including Elder, Sir James Galway, Lesley Garrett and Sting.

"I saw him at an event and said: "Hello, Sting, will you be a patron of my charity? He is still involved to this day, He's been wonderful." Despite receiving no government funding and relying solely on fundraising, the charity has gone from strength to strength and aims to support another 180 young musicians by 2023.

Prince Edward and Katharine returning home after a tour of Africa, 1962. Photo / Getty Images

But having only just recovered from the pandemic, putting fundraising on hold, Katharine fears that the cost-of-living crisis will result in children abandoning music lessons, seen as a luxury as household budgets are squeezed.

"I certainly worry about that," she says. "That is a very important thing to talk about, and how we can remedy it. A lot of our children are so keen that they themselves try their hardest to find the funds they need."

I remind her of a story I'd heard, that she once loaned her own violin to a student who couldn't afford to buy one.

"It didn't go down that well with my family," she chuckles. "It was a priceless relic."

How long did she borrow it for? "I think she's still got it." The musician is now in her 20s and a successful singer-songwriter. Other children helped onto greater things by the charity include Joshua Batty, now Principal Flautist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Daniel Bovey, member of the highly acclaimed Mela Guitar Quartet.

As we discuss Katharine's aristocratic upbringing at Hovingham Hall, the Worsley family estate in rural north Yorkshire, it soon becomes clear why she decided to teach music.

"I don't remember there being much music in the house but when I went to boarding school, there was a very enthusiastic music teacher. She was full of encouragement and had spare time for you instead of feeling I'm wasting her time. She was extraordinarily good at bringing the music out in you."

Homesick at the former Runton Hill School in North Norfolk and desperate to get back to the village where she had grown up, Katharine threw herself into music and sport - captaining the lacrosse team and playing tennis.

"I yearned for Hovingham all the time," she admits. "I remain a homely kind of person, much to my family's worry. London is not my home, Yorkshire is, still, and I'm still a Yorkshire lass. I'm actually very proud to be a Yorkshire lass. It's daffodil country. I feel I still belong in the village.

"So boarding school was very hard indeed. We had the most awful uniforms too. A shirt and a kind of loose thing, a tunic - it was dreadful."

As well as playing the piano, she also learned the organ and violin and would go onto to sing soprano in The Bach choir - yet her family never quite nurtured her fledgling talent.

Born in 1933, the fourth child and only daughter of Sir William Arthington Worsley, 4th Baronet, Lord Lieutenant of North Riding, and his wife Joyce Morgan Brunner, there is a sense that Katharine was not just a victim of her era and her gender but her upper-class upbringing too.

Having studied music for a year at college after school, I wonder whether she ever dreamed of being a concert pianist.

"I don't think I had a family who would ever let me think I was that good," she says. " I think my family would have gently said, 'Perhaps don't aim too high'."

Was that a generational thing?

"A little bit."

She ended up being sent to finishing school. "That was the thing that was done at the time," she shrugs.

Yet her life was to change beyond all recognition when she met Prince Edward, the dashing Army officer son of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, at a party in the late 1950s.

It took them several years to get engaged, not only because Prince "Eddy" was three years younger and based at Catterick Garrison at the time, but also because his formidable mother, Princess Marina, who once famously referred to the Queen Mother as "a common little Scottish girl". remained unconvinced Katharine was up to scratch.

They eventually married at York Minster in June 1961, the first royal wedding in that location in 633 years. Katharine felt an affinity with the historic cathedral because she had been privileged enough to play the organ there - and insisted that the bracing Widor Toccata be played as she walked down the aisle.

The high-profile event gave Katharine her first taste of life in the limelight - something by her own admission she never really got used to.

"It was difficult to handle but I had a wonderful father who was so helpful to me. He sat beside me in the car. It was new to both of us and overwhelming to both of us. But we were fine."

The Duke and Duchess after their wedding ceremony, 1961. Photo / Getty Images

Was she close to her father, then? Proudly telling me he captained the Yorkshire cricket team, she replies: "Yes very close. I was close to my mother but I was closer to my father.

"I was the only daughter, there were three brothers so I was a Daddy's girl."

The Duke and the Duchess went on to have three children, George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, born in 1962, Lady Helen Taylor, born two years later, and Lord Nicholas Windsor born in 1970. (Her granddaughter, George's daughter Marina, 29, now lives with the couple at Wren House).

Yet tragedy struck when Katharine fell pregnant again in 1975 and caught German measles, forcing her to have a termination, for which she never quite forgave herself. Two years later she gave birth to a stillborn son, Patrick, which sent her spiralling into depression. She spent seven weeks being treated for "nervous strain" at the King Edward VII hospital in London.

"It had the most devastating effect on me," she told The Daily Telegraph in 1997. "I had no idea how devastating such a thing could be to any woman. It has made me extremely understanding of others who suffer a stillbirth."

Yet according to friends, while she was devastated to lose both children, she resented the way the tragedy was used to define her, along with a string of health problems including ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as "chronic fatigue syndrome"). When Mary Riddell's biography of her was published in 1999, "The Troubled Life of Katharine Worsley", she hated the title.

As one source who has known Katharine for more than 20 years explains: "Katharine has always been a caring and empathetic person throughout her life, as demonstrated by her early years as a royal and all her work and support for many charities. In later years, perhaps because of her own human frailty and personal tragedies, her suffering gave her a unique insight into the sufferings of others and enhanced her genuine desire to reach out to others in a discreet and compassionate way."

As well as teaching in Hull, the royal was a long-serving supporter of Unicef, helped to serve free meals to the homeless and for five years volunteered for the Samaritans after becoming a patron of the charity in 1977.

Although reluctant to discuss her mental health problems, she agrees that she became a counsellor because she felt she could empathise with what callers were experiencing. "I felt I could relate, yes."

She stresses how, far from being a recluse, weighed down by personal problems, she has always been extremely active behind the scenes. "I've always… worked isn't the right word but I've always been busy, always got something to do - whether it's something to do with music or charity. I like being busy!"

These days, Katharine has almost completely withdrawn from public life, bar an annual appearance at the Royal Box at Wimbledon and the odd royal wedding. Having converted to Catholicism in 1994, she still attends church regularly.

She watched the Platinum Jubilee celebrations on the television with "fascination", and says of the 96-year-old monarch: "I think she's an astonishing leader of people. She's just a shining example to us all. And she goes on. It's incredible. She's nearly 100."

Having spent our 90 minutes together intrigued by the music player, I conclude the conversation by asking Katharine what she is listening to these days.

"It's quite a hard question to answer," she says, pausing to think of her favourite artists. "I just love music. Something that catches my ear on the radio - I don't really listen to records. If it makes my feet tap then I'm happy."

As well as once declaring a fondness for the boy band Blue, I heard she also quite likes rap music.

"Oh yes I do," she says, smiling.

Which rappers?

"I don't know all their names."

Eminem? "Yes."

Stormzy? "No".

Ice Cube? "Yes".

Kayne West? "No".

I wonder if she ever listens to any thrash metal. "I'd give it a go but possibly not for long. My husband likes music but very serious music. I'll listen to anything. I even like beat boxing."

It's the perfect note to end on. Mrs Kent: the original royal rebel with a cause.