Cheers rang out as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appeared from the Lindo Wing of St. Mary\u2019s Hospital, London, with their newborn son in the mid-afternoon of Tuesday 23rd July. It was a moment of royal history thirty-one years in the making. The proud father was gently but firmly in control of the proceedings responding to questions from the waiting media and cheering crowd: \u201cHe\u2019s got a good pair of lungs on him that\u2019s for sure. He\u2019s a big boy, he\u2019s quite heavy, but we\u2019re still working on a name, so we\u2019ll have that as soon as we can. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve seen him really so having a proper chance to catch up.\u201d William joked about baby\u2019s \u201ctardiness\u201d in arriving a few days later than the due date and how the media \u201ccould all go back to normal now.\u201d It was a nice touch and showed how he has come to terms with the media presence in his life. And a touch of self deprecating British humour was on show as well: \u201cHe\u2019s got her [Kate\u2019s] looks thankfully.\u201d A prescient question then followed: had they chosen the name yet and was it as speculated George? \u201cWait and see means wait and see,\u201d William laughed. Kate kept back a little and let William do most of the talking. The brief interview ended with confirmation that William had changed his first nappy which Kate said he \u201cwas very good at\u201d and, lastly, a joke about baby\u2019s hair from William: \u201cHe\u2019s got way more than me, thank God!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a little after 7pm when the couple reappeared, this time with their Range Rover on hand for the trip back home. William, clearly warming to his new role as a dad, put baby on the back in the secured seat and then stepped into the driver\u2019s seat for the trip back to Kensington Palace. William recalls this as a significant moment personally: \u201cThere are times where you can\u2019t do it yourself and the system takes over, or it\u2019s appropriate to do things differently. But I think driving your son and your wife away from hospital was really important to me.\u201d These scenes were the culmination of months of anticipation building to a particularly intense period in July. The birth of the Cambridge\u2019s first child was an enormous global media event, but in a few brief seconds from the door of the Lindo Wing to the Range Rover it was over.\u00a0William and Kate had dealt with it all expertly. Whilst responding to the public interest, they had managed to maintain some of the privacy that such an intensely personal event warrants. Perhaps wanting to quell the speculation it only took until the next day for baby\u2019s name to be announced: Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge. All of which neatly, at least for a while, drew a line between the public and the private. It was now time for the parents and baby to have some time alone away from the media glare. In the meanwhile the celebrations spread. The birth of the latest addition to the House of Windsor was of course also that of the future British monarch and Head of the Commonwealth and it was marked across the sixteen Commonwealth realms and member nations. The news was first conveyed in a press release from Palace officials. Gun salutes signalled the birth in London, Bermuda, New Zealand and Canada; the bells of Westminster Abbey and many other churches were rung; and iconic landmarks throughout the Commonwealth realms were illuminated, often in blue to signify the birth of a boy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cheers rang out as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appeared from the Lindo Wing of St. Mary\u2019s Hospital, London, with their newborn son in the mid-afternoon of Tuesday 23rd July. It was a moment of royal history thirty-one years in the making. The proud father was gently but firmly in control of the proceedings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[137,38,172,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-weddings","8":"tag-george","9":"tag-kate","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-william"},"yoast_head":"\n