| found in the July 2001 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine Prince William, between two worlds It is hard to believe, but the first-born son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana is about to say goodbye to his childhood. On June 21, as he celebrates his nineteenth birthday, William Arthur Philip Louis will be readying himself for college. After a "gap" year spent traveling around the globe, he is set to enter the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, in September. Perched on the North Sea coast, in the town of Fife, the exclusive school is a place where the freshman art history major can live much like any other student - bunking in an ivy-covered dorm, lingering over cups of tea at Brambles cafe (a hang-out close to the art history department) and, no doubt, checking out the local lassies. On the brink of adulthood, the boy who could be King is also being groomed for his role as a public figure. This year the prince held his first-ever press conference - onve in which he spoke publicly for the first time about his mother. Charming, poised, and every bit as charismatic as Diana, Prince William met reporters last September at his father's country house, Highgrove. Occasionally biting his lip and holding his six-foot-two-inch frame in a slouch, he spoke frankly about Shadows of a Princess, a catty tell-all by Diana's longtime private secretary and confidant, Patrick Jephson. William announced that he and Prince Harry (now 16) "are quite upset that our mother's trust has been betrayed and that even now she is being exploited." Unfortunately, that trust was betrayed again three months late, when Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, was implicated in the disappearance of a $735,000 model yacht that had belonged to the Waleses. And the plot thickened this past April, when a police raid on Burrell's home near London yielded clothing, school notebooks, and hundreds of snapshots that belonged to William and Harry. (Charles and his sons asked that Burrell not be prosecuted, but that their property be returned.) Though he has mourned her in private, William obviously lives with the loss of his mother every day. Along with unswerving love, Diana offered her sons a sense of the world beyond the Windsors - taking them to fast-food restaurants and amusement parks and allowing them to dip into pop culture. She also encouraged them to broaden their perspective: "Diana had friends across all classes and wanted the boys to see the other side of life," says a reporter who knew her well. Today, William reflects the best of both parents. Like Diana, he has spectacular looks, a sensitive, empathetic nature, and a certain irreverence (he got "his giggle from his mum," according to a longtime friend). From Charles he acquired discipline and a sense of duty. Increasingly confident as a parent, Charles is clever enough to let his son buck tradition at times. And so the prince is expected to spend the next four years in Scotland, rather than Cambridge, where Charles studied. If William's career at his prep school, Eton, is any indication, he will be a star. A scholar who excelled in sports, William scored well on his pre-college exams - far better than Charles did in his day. In Fife, students are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the charmer with brains and breeding (not to mention outstanding pecs): In the past year, applications to the school have reportedly jumped 44 percent. As William Windsor (please don't call him Your Royal Highness), the prince is hoping to blend into student life. Still, school officials are already scrambling to protect him from undue scrutiny. Beginning this fall, grades at St. Andrews will be posted anonymously. Students in William's dorm will be screened, and the president of the university has warned that he will take "a very dim view" of anyone who talks with reporters. For all of that, two tabloids are rumored to have rented houses in Fife - the btter to spy on the royal heartthrob. And in April of this year, an electronic sweep by MI5 (the British equivalent of the FBI) in the dorm suite where William will live revealed a device to tap his e-ail and phone calls. But unlike his parents, William seems to value discretion; though he's had at least two girlfriends, their names have not been made public. By all accounts, the prince is also more suave than young Charles (whose awkward phase lasted for decades). William "is aware of his sex appeal," a friend's father has said. "He's very cool." As someone who know him put it, "He quite likes girls, and he likes them tall and upper-class." (Indeed. On the Aegean cruise last year, the prince invited not one but three female guests who fit that description.) William betrayed little when asked how he capture a girl's attention. "Trying to explain might be counterprodutive," he said. Apparently, his approach is low-key: "There's a story of someone talking to him in a garden for an hour before they realized who he was," says one observer. Apart from his romantic life, the prince has matured in other ways - notably in his acceptance of the woman whom Di called "the rottweiler." William and Camilla get along fine," says Richard Kaye, a reporter who was close to Diana. "She's not pushy - she lets him make what he wants of the relationship ans is determined not to be seen as a stepmother figure." Along with Charles, William rides with the Beaufort Hunt, a fox-hunting group to which Camilla belongs. And when his father's mistress had pneumonia last spring, William reportedly visited her at St. James's Palace (Charles's London home) and plied her with hot drinks. In February William was on hand when Charles, 52, and Camilla, 53, made a rare public appearance together at a gala for the Press Complaints Commission (an agency that regulates intrusions of privacy by the press.) As part of his quiet campaign to bring Camilla out of the shadows, Charles made a point of arriving at the event at London's Somerset House with his older son at his side. While they circulated in one part of the packed gallery, Camilla held forth in another. Holding a glass of Chablis, William looked perfectly at ease. Portrayed by Diana as a distant father, Charles now seems to be affectionate with his sons; at photo calls, he's been known to draw them into a hug. And, according to painter John Wonnacott, who recently completed a portrait of the Windsors, "During the sittings, the boys joked about their father in a way that made it clear that they loved him." At the moment, William's social life is linked with his father's. The prince's friends are the offsprings of Charles's aristocratic chums; they see one another at their country homes or at trendy clubs. (William also is close to Princess Anne's children, Zara Phillips, 20, and her brother, Peter, 23.) And though some in his crowd have tangled with drugs, the prince has steered clear of scandal: "He's been told, 'Don't let the side down," a source close to the family has said. Since Diana's death, her son's contact with the Spencer clan has dwindled. At her funeral in September 1997, her brother, Earl Spencer, delivered a eulogy critical of the royal family - promising to carry out his sister's dream that his nephews live a life in which "their souls can sing openly and are not weighed down by duty." The Windsors bristled, and "the Spencers still don't get a look in ," says Peter Archer, a reporter who covers the Palace. As a de facto single parent, Charles kept a close watch on William during his year of living dangerously. Early on, rumor has it, Charles nixed a plan for William to dally on a ranch in Argentina - presumably because it seemed unwise for a prince to look like a polo bum. Instead, William joined a contingent of Welsh guards on a rigorous survival course in Belize; he also pitched in on an environmental project in the Indian Ocean. And during some of his 14 weeks in Africa (which began in March), William planned to labor as a junior game warden - a job that entails mending fences, fixing potholes, and making sure that the pipes that bring water into the bush haven't been smashed by rhinos. It was William's ten-week stint last year in the wilds of Chile that gave him a chance to shine, though. On a community-service mission organized by Raleigh International (a group modeled on Outward Bound and the Peace Corps), he chopped wood, scrubbed toilets, and slept in a damp classroom with 15 other volunteers in the tiny town of Tortel. Clad for the most part in sweatshirts and jeans, the prince cheerfully shouldered massive logs and cooked meals on a primitive stove. ("Oh, foul!" he exclaimed as he tasted the contents of the giant pot he was stirring one morning. "That's the worst porridge I ever tasted!") William admitted that easing ot of the royal cocoon was his toughest challenge. "The living conditions aren't exactly what I'm used to," he confessed in Chile. "Sharing everything with everyone [was] very difficult, because I am a very private person. But I learned to deal with it." In the years to come, Prince William will have planty of practice in sharing himself with the public - something that comes with the territory when you're a royal. But once he finds his footing - between the push of his father's world and the pull of his mother's memory - this charming prince may head down the path toward becoming a very modern monarch, indeed. |