Meet Team Kate: From the vicar's daughter to the karaoke addict, the aides who were there for the birth | Mail Online
Meet Team Cambridge
22 July 2013
excerpts
Including the medical team, their private secretaries and their security guards,
the Cambridges have a close group of people to stand by them.
THE GIRL FRIDAY
No twin-set and pearls for
Rebecca Deacon, a vicar’s daughter who has worked as the
Duchess’s private secretary since her engagement was announced in 2010...Becca, as she is known to her friends, is Kate’s indispensable Girl Friday.
The 30-year-old is typical of the young team who have set up shop at Kensington Palace, where blue blood counts for remarkably little. The youngest of three sisters, she was brought up by her mother, Selina, after her father, Michael, an army major, died in 1986. Selina was later ordained as a priest and is now a vicar... Rebecca was a pupil at the exclusive Royal School in Bath before studying English at Newcastle University.
Her ‘big break’ came when she worked behind the scenes on William and Harry’s 2007 Concert For Diana as a producer’s assistant and won plaudits for her coolness under pressure. She was subsequently absorbed into William and Harry’s private office and, when William’s engagement was announced, moved to work for Kate. Last year she was officially promoted to private secretary, the most senior role in the duchess’s household.
THE RIGHT-HAND MAN
Affable but sharp as a tack,
Miguel Head is
William’s private secretary and is at the heart of a core band of advisers guiding the couple through the early stages of their public life together. Mig, as he is known to his friends, is believed to be the first senior royal aide to enter into a civil partnership with his long-term partner in 2011, the same year his boss wed.
Educated at Bancroft’s, a small public school in Essex, the 34-year-old is not much older than his employer but brings to the role a wealth of experience outside of royal circles. He joined the Ministry of Defence press office in his early 20s and worked his way up, serving as the liaison with Clarence House when Harry went to war in 2007. Editors agreed a media blackout to allow Lieutenant Wales to serve in Afghanistan, but he had to be pulled out when foreign media broke the embargo.
Miguel’s performance in handling such a delicate situation – not least because of Harry’s ire – hugely impressed the princes, who hired him to head their press office. In the role, Miguel, who owes his name to his Portuguese mother, managed to earn both the respect and trust of his principals. As a result he was promoted to the coveted position of private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge last year after his long-standing predecessor Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (a more traditional ex-army and ex-courtier figure) took on an overseeing role.
THE MEDICAL TEAM
The Queen’s own Surgeon-Gynaecologist for over 20 years,
Marcus Setchell, was in charge of the birth. He also delivered both of the Countess of Wessex’s children, Lady Louise, nine, and James, Viscount Severn, four. The countess collapsed and was close to death when Lady Louise was born prematurely in 2003, after the placenta ruptured the lining of the womb. Mr Setchell also led the medical care following Sophie’s ectopic pregnancy in 2001 and performed the Duchess of Cornwall’s hysterectomy in 2007.
Obstetrician
Guy Thorpe-Beeston is a specialist in high-risk pregnancies and dealing with women who have had repeated miscarriages.
Dr Sunit Godambe is a consultant neonatologist at St Mary’s. He grew up in Mumbai, India.
THE MINDER
The couple’s team of Scotland Yard police bodyguards were yesterday led by one of their most experienced officers,
Bill Renshaw. He was photographed organising the convoy that whisked the duchess to hospital (a far more sober experience given that the last time he was photographed was sitting with Prince Harry in a pool in Las Vegas).
V Rebecca Deacon
> Miguel Head
Thumbnail images are cropped portions of larger photographs.
