The Princess of Wales had a number of jobs before she joined the royal family – but by her admission there was one she was “terrible” at.
Prior to her marriage to Prince William, Kate worked as project manager for Party Pieces, her parents’ company, and later as an assistant buyer for the clothing store Jigsaw. However, she also had another little-known job while she was studying at St Andrews University.
Kate opened up about her part-time role while appearing on the BBC special A Berry Royal Christmas in 2019, with William and Mary Berry. After serving mocktails at a dry bar organised by the charity Action on Addiction, Kate told Mary that “it reminded me of my university days when I did a bit of waitressing.” When asked by the former The Great British Baking Show judge if she was good at the job, Kate candidly replied, “No, I was terrible!”
It wasn’t the only secret Princess Kate shared about her and William’s university life together on the show. When Mary asked if the future King is much of an at-home cook, Kate replied, “He sometimes does [cook] actually. He’s very good at breakfast. In university days he used to cook all sorts of meals. I think that was when he was trying to impress me, Mary. Things like bolognese sauce and things like that.”
William and Kate graduated from St Andrews on the same day in June 2005, with the late Queen, Prince Philip , Prince Charles and Camilla, among the audience. Both achieved an upper second class degree, William in Geography and Kate in Art History. On the day of their graduation, Vice Chancellor Brian Lang addressed the students and – as revealed in Katie Nicholl’s biography Kate: The Future Queen – made an accurate prediction.
He said: “You will have made lifelong friends. You may have met your husband or wife. Our title as the top matchmaking university in Britain signifies so much that is good about St Andrews, so we rely on you to go forth and multiply.”
Little did he know how ‘prophetic’ those words would become years later, Ms Nicholl wrote, with William and Kate going on to tie the knot in 2011. The couple spoke about their time at university when they sat down for their engagement interview in November 2010. Tom Brady asked the pair: “When did you first set eyes on each other and what did you think?”
William replied: “It’s a long time ago now, Tom, I’m trying to wrack my brain. We obviously met at university – at St Andrews we were friends for over a year first and it just sort of blossomed from then on. We just spent more time with each other, had a good giggle, had lots of fun and realised we shared the same interests and had a really good time.
“She’s got a really naughty sense of humour, which kind of helps me because I’ve got a really dry sense of humour, so it was good fun, we had a really good laugh and things happened.” Tom then asked Kate, “What did you think of William? It’s clearly not quite the same as meeting your average university student, or maybe it was, what was your first impression?”
The future Princess sweetly confessed: “Well I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy about meeting you. Actually William wasn’t there for quite a bit of the time initially, he wasn’t there for Freshers Week, so it did take a bit of time for us to get to know each other but we did become very close friends from quite early.”
