The princess problem

Does the royal wedding show fairytales can come true? Or should you persuade your daughters that being a princess doesn't bring happiness?

• 

Nick Duerden with his daughters Amaya, five, and Evie, three. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

 

When is the prince marrying the princess?" my five-year-old daughter asked me recently. The question took me by surprise.
I thought, at first, she was referring to a bedtime story. I have two daughters, the younger of whom is three, and a dispiriting number of our bedtime stories revolve around lowly girls with tumbled locks awaiting rescue by handsome noblemen on steeds. But, no, she meant the real one; the one about to take place between the son of our eternal non-king and his comely peasant girl.
I was unable to answer because, frankly, I didn't know. "Soon," I said. "Why? Do you want to watch it on TV?"
She appraised me coolly, a little v forming between her eyebrows. "I want to go," she said.
"Where?"
"The wedding. It's in a church."

It is always wise, in these situations, not to show horror at your child's innocently expressed sentiments, so I didn't. I didn't tell her that we would do no such thing, that, while no vociferous anti-royalist, I nevertheless wanted them to have little impact on my family life, and that, no, we would not be buying any commemorative mugs either.

In the weeks that followed, I learned from my wife, who knows about these things, that we were going to be celebrating in style, and in public. My daughter's school was organising a street party. Neighbours, friends and family would be welcome, all of us unified in temporary British pluck, spirit and pride. I had not endured – or do I mean enjoyed? – a street party since 1977 and the Queen's silver jubilee, our south London estate abruptly transformed, its inhabitants conjoined by a patriotic virus that didn't last. The golden jubilee, a quarter of a century later, mercifully passed me by entirely, but this royal date will not, and come the day, come the hour, we will all – weather-permitting – spend the afternoon commandeering a closed-to-traffic road, where hopefully the proliferation of union flags will not cause us to be mistaken for BNP supporters by unwitting onlookers.
My presence at the wedding party, my wife tells me, will be mandatory. "There'll be sandwiches," adds my daughter.

Royal weddings always did constitute big news story status, of course, but your average blueblood marrying someone not too far from a second cousin twice removed has nothing on this. There are, as I understand it, two overriding reasons for this. The first is that William will one day be the face on our currency, while Kate, not quite peasant stock perhaps but certainly no lifelong polo fanatic, will bring the myth of the picture-book princess back into palpable reality in a way not seen since Diana three decades previously. To many, this is greatly exciting, a cause for hand-clapping.

"Oh, do not underestimate the attraction of Kate Middleton," the former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond tells me. "The entire country, the entire world, is going to be obsessed with this wedding, and Kate in particular. She'll be a great boost to the royal family, I'd say."

Bond is now a freelance reporter, and will be covering, and commenting on, the wedding for several international news outlets. "Polls suggest that 66% of us will take part in street parties," she says. "You see? We can be patriotic …"
Many schools across the country are having similar events. "We've got life-size cutouts of William and Kate," boasts one headmistress, claiming: "The children are really excited." Another school promises "bunting and flags". Bunting?

But not everyone can summon the necessary patriotism. Facebook simmers with anti-royal fury, while the campaign group Republic had planned to hold an alternative street party in Covent Garden, London until the local council decided to nix it, on the grounds that anything calling itself The Not The Royal Wedding Party is likely to be bad PR.

Former Housemartin and Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton thinks the royal wedding "will strike many people as the worst kind of excessive wastefulness: a festival of pomp, circumstance and religious platitudes". The writer Blake Morrison says: "As all of middle England will be consumed by Middletonmania, I expect to spend the day on a remote island, or, failing that, on an isolation ward."
Perhaps they could both head to Sheffield? Its Western Park will be hosting a barbecue under the banner Bollox to the Royal Wedding. Bring your own drink.
My daughter, I'm confident, is no budding royalist. She sees little difference between Cinderella, Snow White or Kate Middleton, 2D or 3D, and is drawn to them purely, I think, because they wear sparkly dresses. She likes sparkly dresses, and when she wears one she is a princess too. She tells me she wants to become one when she grows up, but this is a phase. It will pass.

To read more, click here: The Princess problem