Why Kate Middleton says she felt 'so isolated' after the birth of Prince George

It was a hard time

prince william and kate middleton wales
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Kate Middleton hasn't always had an easy time since joining the Royal Family in 2011.

By her own admission, the early days of being a first-time mum to Prince George were especially challenging because of hers and Prince William's circumstances at the time.

Back in 2020, Kate visited a children's centre in Cardiff, Wales, and opened up at the time about what home life was like for her circa 2013 — and how great it would have been for her to have access to a similar community centre back then.

"I was chatting to some of the mums, I had just had George and William was still working with search and rescue, so we came up here when George was a tiny, tiny little baby, in the middle of Anglesey," Kate said (via the Mirror). "It was so isolated, so cut off, I didn't have my family around me, he was doing night shifts, so if only I'd had a centre like this at a certain time."

Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, speaks to base personnel after a simulated fire response exercise during a visit to RAF Valley in Holyhead in Anglesey, North Wales, on July 9, 2024

(Image credit: Getty Images)

These comments have re-emerged today as Prince William visited RAF Valley in Holyhead in Anglesey, where he worked between 2010 and 2013 as a search and rescue pilot.

After their 2011 wedding and up until George was a few months old, Kate and William lived on that Welsh island. But although Kate was far away from her friends and the rest of her family there, there were still great things about their time.

And while some of these positives were of course time spent with William and baby George, there's one hilarious anecdote from when she lived in Wales that we hope she remembers fondly.

As legend has it, Kate once went shopping at a watersports store in Rhosneigr, where she wanted to buy a westuit — except she realised she'd forgotten her wallet. When she asked the shopkeeper to save the wetsuit for her until she came back with her wallet, he didn't recognise her and asked for her name.

"Perhaps she was trying to play down her destiny as future Queen, but she replied 'Mrs Cambridge,'" a source told the Mail on Sunday in 2012.

"[The owner] was looking straight at her and actually commented that it was quite an unusual surname. He hadn’t a clue who she was. She just smiled and said she’d be back.

"He hasn’t lived it down since."

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Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn is a celebrity and royal news writer for Marie Claire. As a London-based freelance journalist, she writes about wellness, relationships, pop culture, beauty and more for the likes of InStyle, Women's Health, Bustle, Stylist and Red. Aside from her quasi-personal investment in celebs' comings and goings, Iris is especially interested in debunking diet culture and destigmatising mental health struggles. Previously, she was the associate editor for Her Campus, where she oversaw the style and beauty news sections, as well as producing gift guides, personal essays and celebrity interviews. There, she worked remotely from Los Angeles, after returning from a three-month stint as an editorial intern for Cosmopolitan.com in New York. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, she interned at goop and C California Style and served as Her Campus' national style and LGBTQ+ editor. Iris was born and raised in France by a French father and an English mother. Her Spotify Wrapped is riddled with country music and One Direction, and she can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.