So perfect, Diana might have planned every step
IT WAS almost as though Diana had planned it herself. From the church to the godparents, from the official photographer to the style of Prince George’s charming red-and-white outfit, the christening of Princess Charlotte echoed with references to her late grandmother.
And while the ceremony was a carefully choreographed piece of Royal theatre with the crowds and the cameras, it was also recognisably an intimate family affair.
Not for the first time, Prince William has ensured the memory of his mother is at the heart of his life both as a husband and a father.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the choice of godparents.
Laura Fellowes, 34, is William’s cousin and Diana’s niece, while Thomas van Straubenzee also has links to Diana.
Thomas and William have been friends since meeting at Ludgrove, the Berkshire preparatory school, chosen by Diana to ensure he avoided the fate of a previous generation of Royal children by ending up at Gordonstoun, the Scottish school where the Prince of Wales was so miserable.
William already knew the family because Thomas’s uncle Willie – known to Diana as ‘Straubs’ – had been a Spencer family friend since the Seventies.
In 1993, soon after Diana and Charles had separated, she was amusingly linked to the Old Harrovian van Straubenzee after the two were spotted playing tennis at a house party at Floors Castle, home of the Duke of Roxburghe in Berwickshire. When she was subsequently photographed giving him a chaste kiss on the cheek after a lunch at San Lorenzo, the Knightsbridge restaurant, the rumour mill went into overdrive – until his family observed that bachelor Willie was not the marrying kind.
And it can surely be no coincidence that the church for yester- day’s service at Sandringham was where Diana was baptised in 1961. The Princess was brought up on the Royal estate, and a young Prince Andrew – born just a year before her – was a regular playmate.
William and Kate’s decision to make their country home in Norfolk and not Gloucestershire, where Charles has his home, was seen by many as another nod to his mother. Just along the coast from Anmer Hall, the Spencers had a beach hut at Brancaster, where the Cambridges like to walk their dog, Lupo.
Meanwhile, the photography of Charlotte’s special day was entrusted to Mario Testino, the Peruvian- born photographer who shot the last official pictures of Diana.
Taken for Vanity Fair less than three months before her death in 1997, she told me they were among her favourite photographs.
It is clear that these strands taken together represent deeply touching links from Diana to William, who has always insisted he intends to keep memories of his mother alive within his family.
What is also clear is that Kate is happy to indulge him.