The Family and Background of the Duchess of Cambridge, the Middletons 1, Until 2022


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Skippyboo said:
If Carole was really the social climbing Mrs. Bennett control freak that the Mail makes her to be, Pippa would be married to George Percy and James to some Lady with multiple last names by now. ?


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This is perhaps my favorite article ever written on the Middletons. If only all journalists had the same ethics ....

The bottom line on Pippa Middleton - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Just what has Pippa Middleton done to deserve the tidal wave of vitriol that washes towards her every time she is unwittingly papped in the street.

No sooner had new pictures appeared in the papers at the weekend of the Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister and boyfriend Nico Jackson in their tennis whites kissing goodbye than the trolls crept out from under their bridges and logged on to their hate forums.

"Boring, disgusting, get a room, Mummy Middleton won't like that!, tacky ..." You get the drift.

Pippa didn't ask to be famous. She didn't ask the world to letch and paw at her backside, to see her as little more than a walking bottom, to turn her sister's wedding into some sort of perv-fest, freeze-framing endless shots of her buttocks.

And since then everything she has done has been viewed through the prism of a) whether or not you can get a good look at her bum and b) if it's suitable behaviour for the sister of a future queen.

Her harmless little recipe book Celebrate? Savaged. The myth being that she only got it because of her bum and her sister. Actually, the bookshelves are creaking with cookery books by foxy women – Nigella, Rachel, Sophie anyone? – with 'connections'.

Running sporting challenges for charity? Er, what was the bum wearing and what time did the bum do it in?

Her boyfriends? Up to Nico, she was a fortune-hunter out to make a good catch. Now that she's stepping out with the son of people who live in a £250,000 house and run a sports shop, she's letting the side down. Ok, he's a banker, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard. She can't win!

As it happens, both Pippa and her brother James show a rather sweet lack of social climbing in affairs of the heart.

While Nico is from an ordinary background, James's squeeze, Donna Air, is a single mum born into a working class estate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. For all the accusations of Kate having set a 10-year trap to snare a future king, the Middletons actually seem much more relaxed about such matters than many of the obnoxious snobs who look down upon them.

For all the cachet, being Kate's sister clearly isn't endless fun.
In fact, most days now it probably seems to be a bum rap.
 
I try to avoid this subject as I think it is a label that has been given to Carol because some 'uppity' newspapers and people can't cope with the fact that Catherine married William.

I believe William has serious distrust of so many people and organisations, therefore, considering the time he spends with the Middleton's, if he had any concerns that the thought Carole and/or Catherine were social climbers, I think he would have run as far as he possibly could.
 
Carole is painted as the social climber because they can't find anyone else in the Middletons to paint as the bad one. Kate -they put a lot of things on her but they can't say she is just using William because of all of the pictures like from yesterday where it's obvious they love each other madly. Mike - they can't find anyone to say a bad thing about Mike. That leaves just Carole who has the lower class background and built her company from the ground up to become self made millionaires enabling her children to have a top notch education. In America, this would be celebrated but in the UK it is looked down upon especially by the lower classes who are the one filling up the Daily Mail comments up with Middleton hate.


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Mike Middleton comes from a line of wealthy Yorkshire wool merchants, whose trust fund enabled him to send his three children to public school. His grandfather was a solicitor, his father a pilot. All three generations boarded at Clifton College in Bristol.

As far as the Daily Mail is concerned he is hands-off. This leaves Carole as its punching bag.
 
Skippyboo said:
Carole is painted as the social climber because they can't find anyone else in the Middletons to paint as the bad one. Kate -they put a lot of things on her but they can't say she is just using William because of all of the pictures like from yesterday where it's obvious they love each other madly. Mike - they can't find anyone to say a bad thing about Mike. That leaves just Carole who has the lower class background and built her company from the ground up to become self made millionaires enabling her children to have a top notch education. In America, this would be celebrated but in the UK it is looked down upon especially by the lower classes who are the one filling up the Daily Mail comments up with Middleton hate.


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Speculation has it that it was not the proceeds of the family business but a trust fund for the education of the children that paid for the Middleton Children's education and that Pippa got a partial scholarship due to her sporting ability.
 
Mike's trust fund is relative though. The Middletons are multi-millionaires because of their business.
 
Honeybees said:
Speculation has it that it was not the proceeds of the family business but a trust fund for the education of the children that paid for the Middleton Children's education and that Pippa got a partial scholarship due to her sporting ability.
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Whichever way it was there is nothing detrimental about it. The point is the press goes after Carole Middleton simply because as she herself once said "I am the weak link". This is such a pathetic attitude that the press uses. In the US these people would be highly lauded and used as examples of hardworking people who "made it". Jealousy is abundant in the lower classes in the UK apparently.:ermm:
 
I wonder how the Mounbattens or Spencers would fare in today's environment - when it comes to faults and foibles, the Middletons seem like lightweights in comparison.
 
The Duchess of Cambridge: Family, Wealth and Background

Queen Claude said:
I wonder how the Mounbattens or Spencers would fare in today's environment - when it comes to faults and foibles, the Middletons seem like lightweights in comparison.
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The Mountbattens got their fair share of tabloid beatings back in the day - racism, lesbian sex scandals etc...


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Queen Claude said:
I wonder how the Mounbattens or Spencers would fare in today's environment - when it comes to faults and foibles, the Middletons seem like lightweights in comparison.
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If the argument that the problem with the Middletons is a class issue, then the Mountbattens and Spencer's would be fine - they were both of the right class.

The Spencers are a fairly old, noble house. Prince Philip's immediate family - not Mountbattens themselves - were royals; his mother and grandmother were both born in Windsor Castle.
 
This is all just manufactured by the tabloids. I hope no one honestly thinks Britons are going around obsessed over the Middleton family.

The yellow press needs a 'narrative' and its readers are fascinated with social mobility.

Had William married a girl of royal or noble birth the headline would read how out of touch and distant the royals remain in the 21st century.

Sophie Wessex and her family are much more 'commoner' than the Middletons and the world didn't end with her marriage to Edward.
 
Ish said:
If the argument that the problem with the Middletons is a class issue, then the Mountbattens and Spencer's would be fine - they were both of the right class.

The Spencers are a fairly old, noble house. Prince Philip's immediate family - not Mountbattens themselves - were royals; his mother and grandmother were both born in Windsor Castle.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think the Spencers an Mountbattens would continue to get away with it - their background and social status help earn them a "pass" (not that things wouldn't get reported on, but the tone would be different. Not so much of a "what are those shameless social climbers up to?" attitude.)
 
Its funny to note how Polly Toynbee and other left-wing journalists scoffed at Kate being your average 'commoner'. She was described as just another Marlborough College sloane

In the run up to her marriage the Guardian ran many articles noting Kate's public school education (only 7 percent of Brits receive a public school education) and how the family were wealthy beyond the dreams of average people.

So a person really can't win. One person's 'commoner' is another's toff
 
Rudolph said:
This is all just manufactured by the tabloids. I hope no one honestly thinks Britons are going around obsessed over the Middleton family.
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I can vouch for this. :flowers: I have British ex-Pat (and not ex-Pat) friends and acquaintances. None of them exhibit the polarizing anti-Middleton rhetoric I have seen upon occasion. If anything they emphasize the toxic nature of the tabloid press. As an aside, none of them even exhibit any interest in the state of anyone's marriage, William's, Charles' or whoever. Diana is ancient history and of course Camilla will be Queen. It's another world on a royal chat site. Just saying.
 
The best part of the article from the Belfast Telegraph that struck me was the gem of a saying that Pippa Middleton is getting a "bum rap". Very punny! :ROFLMAO:
 
Rudolph said:
This is all just manufactured by the tabloids. I hope no one honestly thinks Britons are going around obsessed over the Middleton family.

The yellow press needs a 'narrative' and its readers are fascinated with social mobility.

Had William married a girl of royal or noble birth the headline would read how out of touch and distant the royals remain in the 21st century.

Sophie Wessex and her family are much more 'commoner' than the Middletons and the world didn't end with her marriage to Edward.
Click to expand...

Certainly the media does stir up the class stuff, but it does help color people's perceptions. Do Brits go around fretting about the Middletons? No. But I do think there are plenty of people with a less-than-favorable view of Carole because of the way the way the media portrays her.


Sophie's family wasn't under as much scrutiny, simply because it's quite unlikely that she's ever going to be queen. Certainly it was noted that she came from a middle class background and that her father was a tyre salesman and her mother was a secretary (and I do still see the "daughter of a tyre salesman" label thrown around every once in a while). However, it was never going to matter too much who Edward married - at least not in comparison to William.
 
But at the end of the day all Carole is guilty of was giving her children the opportunity to have a better start in life than she did. Something almost any mother or father can relate to.

Anyone who buys into all the inverse snobbery 'social climbing' mumbo jumbo the tabloids spin has had a grassy lunch imo.
 
Carole just did what her own parents did moving their family into a better neighborhood and giving kids a better shot. Uncle Gary maybe a bit uncouth but he is a self made millionaire too just like Carole.


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Osipi said:
The best part of the article from the Belfast Telegraph that struck me was the gem of a saying that Pippa Middleton is getting a "bum rap". Very punny! :ROFLMAO:
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The Tele' as it is referred to, like the rest of Northern Ireland can be immensely witty.
 
Rudolph said:
But at the end of the day all Carole is guilty of was giving her children the opportunity to have a better start in life than she did. Something almost any mother or father can relate to.

Anyone who buys into all the inverse snobbery 'social climbing' mumbo jumbo the tabloids spin has had a grassy lunch imo.
Click to expand...

The thing is, I think people do buy into some of the stuff about Carole, even if only subconsciously. That's how a lot of this stuff works - people won't necessarily think they're thinking about class, but they might be under the impression that, say, Carole was the pushy mother determined to get her daughter to marry William. While I think that's hogwash, there seem to be plenty of people who have that sort of impression. However, outside of royal forums, I don't think it's anything that most people give more than a passing thought to.
 
JR76 said:
The Mountbattens got their fair share of tabloid beatings back in the day - racism, lesbian sex scandals etc...
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The tabloid coverage they got paled in comparison to their actual shenanigans. I know Edwina's affair with a West Indian singer got media coverage, but I thought they were able to wiggle out of that.

Ish said:
If the argument that the problem with the Middletons is a class issue, then the Mountbattens and Spencer's would be fine - they were both of the right class.

The Spencers are a fairly old, noble house. Prince Philip's immediate family - not Mountbattens themselves - were royals; his mother and grandmother were both born in Windsor Castle.
Click to expand...
The interesting thing to me is that even people from "the right class" can be in their own way social climbers.

I don't think there is anything wrong with being a social climber, ambitious or whatever term is preferred, I would just like to teleport the Spencers and Mountbattens to 2015 and see what unfolds. On the one hand they may get a pass or fly under the radar because they are "the right class," but on the other hand they are so scandalous and dysfunctional that I wonder if the press and the public would be able to resist feasting off their drama and foibles.
 
Oh I remember comments being made about Sophie's mother allegedly going out to work, the shock of it, to pay for her private education. Then there were the topless photographs just prior to the wedding. There were allegations about one of The then Princess of Wales sisters and indeed her brother. But nothing compared to The Middleton's. As I said before Pippa is a private individual as is James, let them get on with their lives.
 
William and Harry are the only two British princes of their generation. No matter who they marry the women by definition will have married 'up' if we want to start playing the class card.

Even Diana Spencer wasn't the class equal of the Prince of Wales. But the only requirement for marriage into the BRF is the Queen's permission. The country doesn't have morganatic marriage.
 
Rudolph said:
William and Harry are the only two British princes of their generation. No matter who they marry the women by definition will have married 'up' if we want to start playing the class card.

Even Diana Spencer wasn't the class equal of the Prince of Wales. But the only requirement for marriage into the BRF is the Queen's permission. The country doesn't have morganatic marriage.
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I agree. The only situation would be if they married a foreign princess and that would come with it's own kind of troubles :p Including how that princess "married up" into a more "influental" royal house. :p
 
I just hope after what they went through in their younger lives that they both end up married to whomsoever they want and live 'happily ever after.'
 
GömdNatt said:
I think that's James girlfriend Donna?
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It's not donna. Most speculations are that she is somehow connected to Harrys group of friends sitting above. But it seems odd that she would sit squeesed in with the Middletons :p Maybe she's a cousin or friend of the family :)

Also, you can clearly tell where Kate got her sports faces from. Carol is almost as amusing to look at as Kate :p
 
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