The Windsor’s Other Kate: The Forgotten Model Royal
The Queen was joined by two royals named Kate during the Diamond Jubilee service at St. Paul’s Cathedral earlier this week. Both married into the Royal Family and are known for their style and warmth. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is one of the world’s most famous women and has been credited with boosting the Windsor brand while Katharine, Duchess of Kent, has largely faded from public view but deserves credit for modernizing the monarchy in her own special way.
The Duchess of Kent was once known to the world as the smiling, hugging royal cheering the winners and comforting the losers at Wimbledon. Marrying the Duke of Kent in 1961, Katharine spent more than thirty years as a traditional royal, serving as patron of a variety of worthy causes, heading several military units, and conducting royal visits around the world including representing the Queen at Mother Teresa’s funeral in 1997. To believe most royal observers today, she has become a semi-invalid recluse who rarely ventures beyond her family’s small home inside the gates of Kensington Palace. In fact, while Katharine gave up her place on Centre Court and in the Court Circular in the 1990s, instead of retiring, she embarked on two different careers that tapped her passion for music. First, known simply as Mrs. Kent, Katharine spent more than a decade traveling from London to East Hull in Yorkshire to teach music at a local primary school. While getting on with the nitty-gritty of her classroom work, she saw how low parental expectations, limited financial means and lack of guidance was denying many gifted children the opportunity to achieve higher levels of artistic competence and even careers in music. That is when she took on the daunting role of charitable entrepreneur.
In 2004, the Katharine founded Future Talent to fund, nurture and monitor gifted child musicians whose financial circumstances would otherwise prevent them from fulfilling their artistic potential (
Future Talent). From a violinist living in Fife who has been able to take advanced lessons in London to a soprano who has sung in the Houses of Parliament and performed in Norway and Ireland thanks to Future Talent’s support, Katharine and her charity are giving a boost to young musicians all across England, Scotland and Wales. While she no longer seeks the public spotlight, Katharine is far from shy. In fact, get her talking about nurturing the artistic potential of children (
Call me Katharine - YouTube) and you will discover an articulate, forthright and driven royal who can speak with Princess Anne’s frankness (
Katharine Kent - The Alan Titchmarsh Show - YouTube), convey Prince Charles’s missionary zeal (
Powerful Philanthropy Katharine Kent - YouTube), and demonstrate Princess Diana’s empathy (
Future Talent on the BBC News Channel 2nd February 2010 - YouTube).
If the extended Royal Family’s absence from the Buckingham Palace balcony during the Diamond Jubilee was anything to go by, the list of public royals will shrink dramatically in the coming years. The Duke of York has struggled to find jobs in the Firm for his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie. They, along with the future younger children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, won’t likely receive many requests from the Palace to open buildings, inspect troops and travel abroad. At the same time, HRHs who try to pursue ordinary money making careers, from Prince Edward and Sophie Wessex’s media and PR companies to Prince Michael of Kent’s ventures with Russian oligarchs, attract controversy that puts the Windsor’s public standing at risk. That is why Katharine Kent is a role model for future generations of royals. She has combined her private talents and public position to get on with a real job, do good, and quietly support the monarchy while avoiding taxing the public purse or generating bad press.
So the next time you notice the Duchess of Kent’s absence at Wimbledon or a major royal occasion, remember, she’s not hiding, she’s working.
Parker Healy is author of “The Forgotten Prince William: The House of Windsor’s First Modern Prince” © 2012 which is sold through ebook sellers: Barnes & Noble (BARNES & NOBLE | The Forgotten Prince William by Parker Healy | NOOK Book (eBook)), Amazon.com (Amazon.com: The Forgotten Prince William: The House of Windsor's First Modern Prince eBook: Parker Healy: Kindle Store) and Amazon.co.uk (bit.ly/J2uy9k).