Goldsmith pulled it off

le Middleton.Had the Princess of Wales lived short prom dresses , Granny Carole would have had some serious competition.Diana adored babies, and the feeling was mutual.The princess, who lavished affection on her own sons, would have been a most loving grandparent, and William will have felt that loss keenly on Monday when he first held the boy that his mother will never touch.leaves Granny Carole in a uniquely powerful position.It’s no coincidence that Carole and Michael Middleton were the first visitors.With a typical lack of fuss, the couple turned up on Tuesday afternoon at the Lindo Wing of St.Mary’s Hospital in a London cab.Carole, who can look lip-nibblingly anxious on public occasions, cut a radiant figure in a sprigged Orla Kiely dress.Back in 2011, when the Middletons made a statement to the media about William and Kate’s engagement, Mike did the talking.On Tuesday, it was Carole who stepped forward into the electrical storm of photographers and pronounced her grandson absolutely beautiful.She said that she had cuddled him and it all came back.Traditionalists grumbled that the Mids, as they are known to friends, had committed a faux pas by meeting the baby before his royal grandfather.Snobs who feel William married beneath him lose no opportunity to accuse Carole of possessing sharp elbows and forgetting her place.They are the same people who dubbed Kate and Pippa the Wisteria Sisters, for their ferocious ability to social-climb.But the Palace was quick to point out that there had been no breach of protocol by the Middletons.And you can be sure that the couple, who are determined not to put a foot wrong, cleared their visit in advance with the Duke of Cambridge.Still, by letting Carole and Mike see the baby first, he was making a point.The same point that was made last Christmas Day, when William sought the Queen’s permission to miss the royal gathering at Sandringham and opted for a cosier time in Berkshire with Kate’s family.William has been adamant from the start that the Middletons will not be airbrushed out of the picture as other royal in-laws have been, says one Palace insider.For William, who grew up in the Wales war zone with the blood coming under the door, the 33-year marriage of Mike and Carole is a sanctuary and an example.Enjoying Carole’s Sunday roast at the kitchen table in Bucklebury has shown him a relaxed, middle-class way of life that he now seeks for his child.William is very determined not to make his and Kate’s domestic happiness a casualty of royal life wedding dress sash , says a friend.Getting Granny Carole to play a major role in his wife and son’s day-to-day life is a key part of the plan.poor William wouldn’t have been able to see his son come into the world through all that swishy Middleton hair.But it was another sign that the future King is not to be regarded as the sole property of the Royal family.Grandpa Charles may be His Royal Highness, but there is no doubt that, in the domestic realm at least, he ranks below Granny Carole.So, what difference will she make to the life of this little boy, whose destiny was determined from the moment of conception?It is instructive to compare two photographs, both taken in 1982.First, there is the picture of Princess Diana at William’s christening.Surrounded by the world’s most alarming in-laws, the new mother is desperately trying to quiet the squally baby in her arms by sticking her little finger in his hungry mouth.Diana looks flustered under her pink brimmed hat, but there is no indication of concern on the part of the Queen or the Queen Mother.For the Windsors, babies are something that nannies deal with, to be presented to one after bathtime.The Queen was apparently bemused at Balmoral that Diana preferred to do everything for baby William herself, when there were staff to do it for her.In the second photograph, a faded family snapshot, Carole Middleton is sitting on a bed holding her first baby, the 15-day-old Catherine Elizabeth.Carole’s face is practically soft-focus with those rapt, tender feelings that flood the new mother.However, unlike most human women who have had a baby a fortnight ago, she looks serene and immaculate.No bed-hair for Carole and, even more astonishingly, no epaulettes of baby sick on that jumper.Even her figure has pinged obediently back into shape.Middleton was living in a small Victorian semi, washing and ironing her own floral duvet covers; the Princess of Wales was living in a palace full of flunkeys, but there is no denying which woman looks more contented.Somehow designer belts , Kate will have to steer a path between the two.It is a mark of her reserve, and of the loyalty she inspires in friends and neighbours, that we know remarkably little about Carole Middleton.In looks and in drive, the party entrepreneur is very like her late mother, Dorothy, a sales assistant who married Ronald Goldsmith, a painter and decorator.Tiny, birdlike Dorothy was a coal miner’s granddaughter and an engine of aspiration.Known as Lady Dorothy to relatives because she always wanted to be the top brick in the chimney , Dorothy was fanatical about keeping up appearances and raising her two children, Carole and Gary, for a better life.Although Dorothy and Ronald began married life living with Ron’s mother in a condemned flat in Southall, in west London, Dorothy made sure that baby Carole had a Silver Cross pram, the Rolls-Royce of infant transport.It was a pram fit for a princess, and Carole duly grew up with ideas above her station.Back in the Seventies, every pretty, bright working-class girl wanted to be an air hostess.Carole Goldsmith pulled it off, and it was at British Airways that she met a gentle young fellow called Michael Middleton, who was descended from staunchly middle-class legal stock.Carole made an excellent marriage to Mike, and all but two of her own relatives seem to have been considered unsuitable to attend the wedding.The Middletons lived comfortably, though not lavishly, sending their three children to private schools with the he.