Long Anagram by David Bourke
Happy birthday Kate! As the Duchess of Cambridge turns 30, FEMAIL brings you 30 facts about our future queen
1. Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born to parents Michael and Carole Middleton at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading on January 9 1982.
2. Kate was christened at the parish church of St Andrew's Bradfield in Berkshire on June 20 1982.
3. Aged eight, she became a brownie with the 1st St Andrews pack in Pangbourne, Berkshire.
4. At the age of 13, she went to the £15,000-a-year Marlborough College in Wiltshire.
5. During her time there she represented the college at tennis, hockey and netball. She became captain of the college's hockey team and played in the first pair at tennis.
6. Kate is a keen photographer and took pictures for her parents' mail order business Party Pieces.
7. Amman, the capital of Jordan, was home to Kate and her family for a few years in the mid 1980s.
8. The Duchess has completed her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award.
9. Hobbies she enjoys include walking, tennis, swimming, sailing, and painting.
10. It was rumoured that at Marlborough College Kate had a poster of her future husband William on her wall. But she has quashed speculation by revealing it was in fact the "Levi's guy" who adorned her bedroom.
11. Kate spent time studying at the British Institute in Florence during a gap year.
12. She also crewed on Round the World Challenge boats in the Solent while taking a break from studies.
13. In 2001, the Duchess enrolled at the University of St Andrews, Fife, from where she graduated in 2005 with a 2:1 in history of art.
14. When an undergraduate she continued playing sports and turned out for the university's hockey team.
15. Kate met her future husband at St Andrews - a university where graduates have around a one in 10 chance of meeting their perfect partner and getting married.
16. The Duchess worked in London as a part-time buyer for the clothing company Jigsaw Junior. When she left without finding a new job, she earned the nickname 'Waity Katie' - despite the fact she was known to help her parents with their party supplies business.
17. Kate and William's first official event together after they got engaged was at Anglesey last February - dedicating a new RNLI lifeboat.
18. Kate followed wedding tradition, and for 'something blue' had a blue ribbon sewn into the interior of her dress.
19. After the wedding ceremony, on April 29 last year, her bouquet was placed on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey after the service, continuing a tradition started by the late Queen Mother.
20. The see-through dress which sparked William's interest in Kate when she wore it at a university fashion show in 2002 was auctioned in 2011 for £78,000.
21. The Duchess is descended from a family of solicitors and landed gentry on her father's side and butchers, plasterers, road sweepers and domestic servants on her mother's.
22. During her tour of California and Canada during the summer of 2011 she wore more than 25 outfits, winning her accolades from the world's fashion press.
23. Whenever she is photographed wearing high street fashion the garment quickly sells out - one Reiss dress, the Shola bandage dress, sold at a rate of one a minute after Kate was pictured wearing it. As such, Kate has widely been credited with reviving flagging interest in the British high street, transforming the fortunes of her favoured brands such as Zara and Reiss.
24. The Duchess is an official ambassador for Team GB and Paralympic GB.
25. With her husband William she will travel to Malaysia, Singapore, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this year.
26. When in the capital Kate sometimes uses the London bike hire scheme - and London Mayor Boris Johnson gave Kate and William a tandem Boris bike as a wedding present.
27. She is patron of Action on Addiction and the National Portrait Gallery, and royal patron of East Anglia's Children's Hospices and The Art Room. She is also a volunteer with the Scout Association.
28. Although Kate could have a private chef at her disposal, she prefers to do the majority of the cooking for herself and William, and is often spotted shopping at Waitrose on Anglesey and, when she is at Kensington Palace, at the Waitrose on Kensington High Street. Kate even surprised shoppers at Tesco last month when she shopped at the supermarket, stocking up on essentials including Kellogg's Special K.
29. Kate is not allergic to horses, as has been widely reported. At last night's War Horse premiere she steered clear of the horse on the red carpet - but only to protect her Alice Temperley gown. 'The horse was leaving piles of manure everywhere,' an onlooker said.
30. Contrary to previous reports, Kate will not move in with Camilla and Charles when William is posted to the Falklands next month. Instead, Kate plans to use the time to embark upon her charity work.
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Another 30 facts about the Duchess of Cambridge that you might not know:
1. Kate's favourite song is "William, It Was Really Nothing" by the miserable mancunians The Smiths. She would, however, have been wasting her time in her teenage years had she plastered her bedroom wall with posters of Morrissey.
2. Will and Kate's first date was to a karaoke night at The Tudor Inn, High Street, Sheerness in August 2001. They together sang a version of 'You're the One That I Want' from Grease, and were the runners-up.
3. Kate's favourite film is 'My Fair Lady', credited by some with improving her diction, which by her late teens was reportedly a cross between Lorraine Chase and Miss Brahms from 'Are You Being Served?'
4. She's planning to read all of Roger's Profanisaurus.
5. Kate is an eighth Jewish, thanks to her great-grandfather Chaim Nathanson, a school janitor of Stamford Hill, North London.
6. Buckingham Palace reputedly paid £125,000 to Faber & Faber to stop publication of Kate's mother's autobiography 'Doors to Manual', fearing that it might contain some mention of the dreadful and unpleasant first night that a bladdered William stayed at the Middleton's residence, whereupon he, shirtless, threw up all over the geraniums, undressed to his underpants at dinner, did 12 handstands, flatulently fell asleep while naked on the bathroom floor, and in the darkness, mistakenly crawled at 12.30am into Catherine's startled and disgusted parents' bed, and promptly threw up again. Not a good start.
7. Her godparents are former television presenters Maggie Philbin and Keith Chegwin.
8. Catherine engaged a French orthodontist to make her white teeth slightly crooked (a process that's known as microrotation) as she considered that otherwise she would have been physical perfection.
9. She's rather fond of scousers. (Even Wayne Rooney).
10. She watches every EastEnders episode religiously.
11. The Duchess is a skilful cellist with a flawless fingering technique, and since 2007 has been a patron of the Jacqueline du Pre Appreciation Society.
12. She's deaf in her left ear.
13. Her one alleged weakness is for plain chocolate digestives, of which she has been known to polish off a whole packet in one sitting.
14. She's a qualified jujitsu instructor.
15. Catherine's on Twitter, and her username is @waitykaty
16. Kate was chatted-up by the footballer Ryan Giggs backstage at the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, where Giggs gave her his phone number, and undaunted, she gave it to Jenson Button, and said that it was her phone number.
17. The Duchess is insanely jealous of her fit sister Pippa's pert and shapely posterior, and performs buttock- crunches at every opportunity.
18. Kate was offered a £13.5m deal to reveal all for Penthouse. William has offered her £12m not to. Her decision is unknown.
19. Her wedding present to her husband was a secondhand (but genuine 1959) Martin D28 dreadnought acoustic guitar, on which she'd had her tasteful portrait painted, and onto the case.
20. His generous wedding present to her was a red Lamborghini Aventador, which was keyed by a sniggering and somewhat inebriated Prince Harry (he of "wiggly worm" fame) three weeks later, after a night at Boujis, Kensington.
21. Catherine and William have decided that they'd like two daughters and two sons, reportedly already naming them Tegan, Chelsee, Jaden and Rooney.
22. Due to "an unfortunate and innocent administrative oversight", her Jobseeker's Allowance was not withdrawn until months after her 2011 wedding. With the agreement of the court she's clearing the fraud...I mean "overpayment" at a rate of £2.90 a week, cash.
23. It has been claimed that Kate wears unique, and specially-designed reflective knickers to stop paparazzi "upskirt" flash photos of her undercarriage being taken whilst getting in and out of limousines.
24. Kate has a letter 'P' tattooed on her left buttock, and a letter 'W' tattooed on her right. It's unclear whether it stands for "Prince William" or whether it's a tribute, when she bends over, to Will's late mother Diana (Princess of Wales).
25. Kate likes to sing Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 'Murder on the Dancefloor' and Dido's 'Here With Me' using a hairbrush as a microphone in the bedroom when her husband is on Air-Sea rescue business.
26. When Prince William becomes King, Queen Catherine's parents (should they still be around, and their daughter still be married to William) are in line for £180,000 from William Hill bookmakers, from a £10 bet placed in October 1988.
27. Kate is booked up for "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" 2012.
28. Her sister, "Her Royal Hotness" Pippa is due to appear in "Strictly Come Dancing".
29. Kate is fluently quadrilingual, speaking (apart from English, of course), the French, Russian and Welsh languages.
30. This year, Kate received a birthday card from a Kim Kardashian, whoever she is. As a result, she now wants to be known instead as Cait.
[3,906 letters]
Nominated in January 2012.
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