Autumn Kelly - Marrying into Royalty
If it’s true that Peter Phillips once said his romance couldn’t go anywhere because he was expected to find a girl from a “good solid British family”, the announcement of his engagement to Autumn Kelly is a triumph of sense over sensibility.
Maybe, poor boy, he genuinely once believed that Canada wasn’t a suitable breeding ground for the mate of the Queen’s grandson and that “the right background” was still a box-ticking essential for the 10th in line to the throne. More likely, he was trying to put gossip mongers off the scent and give himself a bit of space.
And, seeing what has happened in royal marriages when the social and class expectations are fulfilled, it is a great bonus that Miss Kelly is just a bright, outdoorsy, feet-on-the-ground girl from Montreal who, rather inconveniently from her point of view, fell in love with a man on the wrong continent.
She works for a management consultancy company and looks after their client, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson. Yesterday her breezy, friendly voice could be heard on her office voicemail. But it was a pre-engagement recording.
When she answered her own mobile phone, as a good personal assistant should, her voice dropped several tones at the horror of having to comment on her engagement or her job. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything about that,” she said.
It was left to a Canadian friend, one of her mother’s generation, to rhapsodise:
“They were made for each other. This is a marriage made in heaven. She’s just the nicest person you could ever meet and they’re devoted to one another.”
This year, their final seal of approval, the couple were both guests of the Queen at Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot. More enthusiasm was registered by the Monarchist League of Canada. “It’s exciting, a Canadian girl marrying into the Royal Family,” said the head, Robert Finch, raising the feverish possibility of a wedding in Montreal.
“I would expect it to be a low-profile wedding as far as royal weddings go,” he added. From what we know of them, that would suit the couple just fine. (via The Telegraph)
