Prince William by Penny Junor

Author:Penny Junor [Junor, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781471320095
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 2013-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

FINAL YEARS OF FREEDOM

By William’s final years at St Andrews he had long since given up the baseball cap. Head up, he walked tall and confidently through the town, popped in and out of shops, pubs and cafés with scarcely a second thought, and where he had once been a bit of a passenger in seminars and tutorials, he began to speak up. His tutors all noticed him growing before their very eyes and taking a genuine interest.

Having dropped History of Art, he was concentrating on more advanced physical geography, which he found much more exciting. ‘The bits of the course that got him most motivated,’ says John Walden, ‘were those that had a social context. He did a course on HIV and AIDS and he got really interested in that because he could see in the outside world where that was an issue. He did a course with [Dr] Charles Warren [a colleague] on environmental management in Scotland – and they’re a family with a country tradition – and he was really interested in that. The other piece of independent work was a review essay on some issue to do with big game hunting in Africa and the damage that that is doing to populations of big game.’

Charles Warren found William strikingly humble. ‘I formed a very high opinion of him as a man with his feet on the ground, earthed and normal; always a pleasure to deal with and interact with. He had no sense of entitlement, was never pushy. He was an outstanding young man by any standards but the fact that he’s had all that privilege and extraordinary life, yet he was most normal. Whoever the people were that had a hand in bringing him up they deserve a lot of credit.’

When it came to roll calls, for security reasons William’s name never appeared on any lists. Charles remembers William and another boy turning up late one day in the second year, and without looking up he said, ‘Names please.’ William’s companion sang out his name, while William kept his mouth firmly shut. ‘The look on his face said, “You’re not expecting me to say my name, are you?” He was embarrassed, he hated standing out.’

In June 2004, Charles took fifteen junior honours students, including William, on a field trip to the Jostedalen ice cap in western Norway, which is the biggest and most dramatic in mainland Europe. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, particularly at that time of year, with spring in the valley floor but snow still on the mountains; it is also one of the most remote. Their base was at a self-catering campsite that belonged to a small hotel in the tiny settlement of Gjerde, and every day they walked up the valley to the field site on the eastern flank of the ice cap to measure, record and map where the glaciers have been in retreat to establish the evolution of the landscape.

William came alive in those surroundings.

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