I shook Prince William’s hand
Waikato Independent’s Royal reporter Mereana Austin tracked down Prince William in Cambridge – all in the line of duty, of course.
I kept my hand outstretched and was shaking like a Chihuahua. Finally Prince William took my hand and shook it for two whole seconds.
But then it was over. A little girl about seven stole Prince William’s attention with a card she had made him – how could I compete with that?
My friend Ashley and I arrived across the road of the Cambridge Town Hall yesterday at 10am.Already there were a lot of people with prime spots around the barriers so we lined up and waited.
A nice middle-aged-man whose wife had drag him out, slowly kept squeezing me closer until I was in the second row behind the barrier. I would like to thank him – without him this never would have been possible.
A lot of the crowd around me were elderly. I was worried when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived people would start pushing and screaming like a mosh pit at a concert and they would get trampled but fortunately that didn’t happen.
The only drama I saw was a mother and daughter duo that kept trying to push their way to the front and elbowed some little girl and made her cry.
After three hours of waiting the royals finally arrived. They drove around Cambridge town, got out of the car, and walked straight into the town hall.
After a bit more waiting they came out and began making their way. First to talk to important people who were on the steps of the town hall, and then making their way around the crowd.
Kate is beautiful. I was a little disappointed I did not get to see her close up but thought it was great how Prince William and Kate separated so that they could cover more ground.
Prince William was polite, sincere and engaged himself in small conversations. All I managed to say was a high pitched “Hi”.
I was thinking about never washing my right hand again. But later on I patted a dog and it must have smelt royalty on my hand and slobbered all over it.
For those of you who are wondering, the Prince’s hand was soft but manly.
All too soon it was over and the Duke and Duchess were off to the Avantidrome.
And everyone was left to chat about Prince William’s bald spot.
