There are only a couple of dozen members of the royal family out of a total 69.5 million Britons – so what are the chances of spying one of this select, slim few out in the wild?
And not just somewhere obvious like that old Harry haunt, Chelsea’s The Hollywood Arms or the tennis courts at the Hurlingham Club or the tills at Asprey?
Try the floor of the 10.30am London to Bristol train service.
You might not believe it but we have proof.
Last week, Lady Louise Windsor – a girl who by rights should be a princess, a girl who is 17th in line to the throne, one place ahead of Princess Anne – spent a two-hour trip sitting cross legged on the grungy carpet of a Great Western Railways service, giving no indication she semi regularly gets to have a smashing go in golden carriage down The Mall.
During the trip, she worked on an essay on her laptop and drank a take away cup of tea, reportedly seeming totally unfussed by not being able to find a seat.
Have no clue quite who Lady Louise is? Not au courant with the latest issue of Majesty?
Let me catch you up
Age 22, Lady Louise is the daughter of Prince Edward and Sophie, The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, making her one of Queen Elizabeth’s eight grandchildren and King Charles’ niece.
Her arrival in the world was dramatic, with her born prematurely and her mother suffering significant blood loss and being 15 minutes from death.
When she was born in 2003, by rights she should have been made a princess, like her cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, with an HRH to boot.
Only her parents, ever sensible, her mother having grown up in the mid-est bit of middle England and knowing how to turn the dishwasher on, decided they wanted their daughter to have a far more normal life.
Hence, they settled on the far reduced ‘Lady’ option.
The world didn’t really seem much of the little girl until Prince William and Kate, The Prince and Princess of Wales’ 2011 wedding, an event that rules dictate I describe as ‘fairytale’.
By and large, Lady Louise has largely kept well out of anything like the spotlight, only cropping up at family ‘dos like weddings, funerals and the church outings.
(Basically anything involving a mitre, a font and which demands a new fascinator.)
However, ever since her grandmother, Her late Majesty went off to her great racetrack, we have been seeing more of her.
Lady Louise took place alongside her cousins, including Princes William and Harry, during the historic vigil during the late Queen’s lying in state.
After King Charles’ coronation, as the daughter of working members of the royal family, Lady Louise appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony, a privilege denied to Harry.
Despite these gilded outings, her actual life is so ordinary it’s liable to put you to sleep.
She’s currently in her final year of St Andrew’s University (William and Kate’s alma mater) where she is doing an English degree.
Then it was back to her normal life as a student at St Andrew’s University, where is studying English, has a job in the canteen and has tried her hand at a bit of student theatre.
“She’s really grounded, whenever I see her she’s wearing understated clothes – you literally wouldn’t know at all that she’s a member of the royal family,” a fellow student told the Telegraph last year.
Earlier this year it was revealed that she is channelling all those centuries of military forebears and has started an army officer training course at university.
Lady Louise is, by all accounts, a very nice girl who is routinely described as down-to-Earth, in some ways quite literally.
Before she headed off to uni, she had a $13-an-hour job at a Surrey garden centre.
One customer told the Telegraph: “The staff seemed to adore her. It’s not every day you buy your begonias off a royal.”
The good news for anyone with a real hankering for a royal wedding is that she has a boyfriend, a fellow student named Felix da Silva-Clamp, who has a part-time job in an ice cream parlour.
Reportedly brought up in Melbourne (where his mother still lives), da Silva-Clamp has been spied in the royal midst, cheering on Lady Louise when she competed in the Sandringham Horse Driving Trials.
(Prince Philip got his granddaughter into the unusual sport.)
Her other not exactly Gen Z typical hobby? Dancing Scottish reels.
She has never put a foot wrong, caused a fuss or had the paps trailing her.
In all of this, what’s so interesting about this train photo of Lady Louise is that it perfectly sums up the strange double life that most of the members of the royal family actually live. Aside from Prince William, none of the other seven grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth undertake official duties, leaving them to straddle two worlds, of palace-dom and also simultaneously having to put your own bins out.
It’s something of a strange dual existence, one foot in the royal camp – getting to have the occasional wave on the Buckingham Palace balcony (for some of them) and perpetually being a dead cert for a Balmoral invitation – while simultaneously being expected to have a job and drive a station wagon and queue at Pret for your chicken roll.
The perfect example of this bizarre dichotomy came last week for the christening of Beatrice’s daughter, Athena Mapelli Mozzi.
The ceremony was held at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, a Tudor masterpiece where future Kings and Queen have been christened, married and memorialised since Henry VIII built in between wives.
Then afterwards to celebrate, little Athena’s princess mother, a Counsellor of State to the King and ninth in the line of succession, and her princess aunt, 12th in line, went down the pub, arriving by taxi.
Palace then pints. That about sums up the strange world of the royal cousins.
Despite their surname, all of the King’s nieces and nephews, aside Lady Louise’s still at school 18-year-old brother the Earl of Wessex, work.
Peter Phillips, Zara Tindall, Harry, Beatrice and Eugenie – they all have jobs of some stripe or another, which range from trying to set up an ice skating rink (Peter) to plugging the Gold Coast’s Pacific Fair shopping centre (Zara) to selling seven figure art (Eugenie) to dashing to Riyadh to host afternoon teas (Beatrice) to spilling family secrets to Netflix cameras. (No prizes for guessing there.)
Still, I’d argue that they all have something that William will never have – choice.
Choice about what choice about where they live, how they are defined and what they will do with their one great and wonderful life.
They do not have history and pressure and duty weighing them down, even if that means they occasionally end up on the floor.
I know what I’d prefer.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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