Kate Middleton and her former history teacher exchanged an emotional embrace in Cornwall on Thursday (9 January), as they reunited for the first time since the princess was a child.
In William and Kate’s first joint visit to Cornwall as the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year, they attended The National Maritime Museum Cornwall and greeted members of the public.
In the crowd was Kate’s former teacher Jim Embury, who taught her at St Andrew’s prep school in Pangbourne, Berkshire.
The duchess’ face lit up as she noticed Embury and opened her arms wide to hug him.
“Oh my goodness”, the duchess said as she embraced him outside the museum in Falmouth, where he works as a volunteer.
The princess added: “I do recognise you. I remember the classroom and everything.
“The things you taught me, I now teach to my children,” Kate said, according to Cornwall Live, referring to Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four.
This comes just one month after the release of Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir, Spare, which was released on 10 January.
In it, Harry claimed that Kate was uncomfortable when his now-wife Meghan offered the duchess a hug upon being first introduced.
He also recalled a time when Meghan forgot her lip gloss and asked to borrow Kate’s – an “American thing,” Harry wrote.
“Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” the Duke of Sussex continued. “Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.”
In the Sussex’s Netflix documentary, released in December, Meghan also claimed that Kate struggled to relax around her.
“Even when Will and Kate came over and I was meeting her for the first time I remember I was in ripped jeans, I was barefoot,” she told the camera in Harry & Meghan.
Continuing, she explained how William and Kate struggled to relax away from the public eye.
Meghan said: “There is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and you relax now. But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
