Kate's Queenly Training Her Majesty-In-The-Making

The apprenticeship begins for our lovely Duchess

- Tony Powell

Does the Queen eat pizza?” For once, the Duchess of Cambridge was stumped.

She bent down to the small child who asked the question during a visit to a community garden in London. “You know, that’s such a good question,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe next time I see her, shall I ask?”

Perhaps pizza was a topic when Kate and her regal grandmother-in-law shared a limousine last month for their first-ever joint engagement, opening a new technology centre at King’s College London.

Even before their pair got out of the car, people commented on the warmth and friendliness between them as they chatted and laughed.

The warmth, in part, was literal – they both had their legs under a blanket, which the Queen had offered to share in a sign of special intimacy.

Greeted by college chairman Sir Christopher Geidt, who is also the Queen’s former private secretary and is believed to have set up the visit, they went on to shake many hands – including one belonging to a robot.

“Very nice to meet you,” Kate (37) said with a laugh. “So strange,” she added when the hand gripped hers.

The Queen (92) kept her distance – from the robot, not the duchess.

Body language expert Judi James is impressed by how alike the two women are in the way they move, with Kate learning from Her Majesty’s posture and approach. “The Queen’s body language in public is relatively enigmatic. It’s the similarities in the two women’s body language that hint at an increasing emphasis on Kate’s role as Queen-in-waiting,” says Judi.

“The shared blanket might have shown friendship bonds, as does the way the Queen tends to use eye contact to signal undivided attention when Kate chats to her, but it was the mirrored waving that defined the ‘Two Queens’ effect.”