Inside Princess Kate’s relationship with unflappable parents Carole and Mike who are always there in her darkest moments

AMID speculation about her health or the worry of what uncle Gary Goldsmith may say on Celebrity Big Brother, the Princess of Wales knows her mum always has her back.

So when Kate was seen out in public for the first time since having abdominal surgery in January it was, fittingly, with Carole in the driving seat as they did the school run in Windsor Great Park.

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Carole and her husband Michael have quietly supported Kate, 42, since medics revealed she needed her op followed by up to three months’ rest.

The pressure on the Royal Family increased when, just days after Kensington Palace said that Kate would not be undertaking any public engagements until Easter, it was announced that King Charles had an unspecified cancer.

At a time when Prince William wanted to look after his wife and their three children, it became clear he would be needed to help while his father took time off for treatment.

Which is when the calm, unflappable Carole Middleton stepped in.

“Not that she ever stepped out,” said a royal source.

“She’s always been there to give a helping hand — not in a pushy way, but she just made it clear to Kate and William that she was available.”

Carole’s presence at Adelaide ­Cottage, the Wales’s home on the Windsor estate, has proved invaluable in providing a calm, fun ­and distracting influence for the couple’s sons George, ten, and Louis, five, and eight-year-old daughter Charlotte.

Not that being with her grandkids would ever be less than a delight for Carole, who turned 69 in January.

‘Secure and protected’

In a rare interview, with Good Housekeeping magazine, she enthused about taking an active part in their lives.

“I want to run down the hills, climb the trees and go through the tunnel at the playground,” she said.

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“As long as I am able to, that’s what I’ll be doing.

“I cook with them, I muck around dancing, we go on bike rides.”

Indeed Carole — whose brother Gary, 59, said during his stint on ITV’s Celebrity Big Brother that Kate is getting “the best care in the world” — would go to any lengths to ensure her grandchildren’s happiness.

She has another three by daughter Pippa and son-in-law James Matthews — Arthur, five, Grace two, and 21-month-old Rose — and one, six-month-old Inigo, by her son James and his wife Alizee Thevenet.

But Carole is not the only one putting in the hours at this ­difficult time.

Husband Michael, 74, is available too, according to a source who knows the Middletons well.

And his presence at his daughter’s home is appreciated as much by son-in-law Prince William as by Kate.

“What is not generally known is quite how well William gets on with Michael,” said the source.

“While Wills adores Carole — even though he has occasionally made “here comes the mother-in-law” jokes — he has a deep respect for Michael.

“When William first started going out properly with Kate, and he was invited to Sunday lunches at the Middletons’ home in Bucklebury, Berks, William would often take time to stroll in the garden with Michael. They talked about everything under the sun.”

Indeed it was during the early days of his romance with Kate that William felt the more he saw and experienced of the Middletons, the more he appreciated the “normality” of their lives compared to the earlier tension and division between his own warring parents.

William and the Middletons took to one another from the start, and the Prince delighted in the closeness of Kate’s solidly middle-class family and the relaxed atmosphere of their ­spacious but unshowy home.

Their uncomplicated ways created a security that he relished.

As Kate said of the family’s closeness in the couple’s engagement interview: “It’s very important to me . . . they’ve been great over the years, helping me with difficult times.

“We see a lot of each other and they are very, very dear to me.”

William also spoke warmly about the Middletons during the chat, saying: “I get on really well with them and I’m very lucky that they’ve been so supportive.

“Mike and Carole have been really loving and caring and fun, and so welcoming towards me, so I’ve really felt part of the family.”

It was Carole and Michael who provided a comforting refuge for Kate during a fraught few months in 2007 when she broke up with the Prince.

The parting was initiated by ­William, who was said to be feeling “claustrophobic” over the pressure on him to propose.

The couple had been together since the age of 20 and Kate had always reportedly wanted more commitment than he would give.

The rift was healed in a matter of weeks after paparazzi shots of Kate out on the town, seemingly relishing being newly single, apparently prompted William to realise what he was missing.

But it was another three years before he popped the question.

A few months after their reunion, friends of the couple witnessed just how close William had become to the Middletons when Carole and Michael were at the same house party of mutual friends in Hampshire.

“William and Kate were staying the night as guests, while Carole and Michael were driving back to Bucklebury,” said a family friend.

“It was quite apparent that Wills was well-refreshed and rather merry, and Michael very gently guided him to a couple of corner seats in the drawing room, and they were sat there for some time, chatting away.

“It was very clear to us that there was a strong bond between the two.

“When Michael got up to go, Wills gave him such a lovely hug.”

One royal expert claimed Carole had been “like a second mum to William and taught him how a loving and supportive family works”.

Biographer Angela Levin said he had been offered “a real sense of normality amid any chaos” since he married Kate in 2011.

“Carole made him feel secure, comfortable and protected and he didn’t have to worry about what he said or be responsible for anyone else’s emotions,” she explained.

‘Famously charming’

Whereas previous “commoners” who have married into the Royal Family have tended to find themselves politely marginalised as in-laws (such as Mark Phillips’ family and the parents of Sophie Rhys-Jones), William has made it clear to courtiers that the Middletons, if they wanted to, were to be included in the big state events.

Carole and Michael have been present at several significant moments, including Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018 and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth in 2022.

They have been seen at plenty of informal gatherings too, such as Royal Ascot with Kate last year.

In his new biography of King Charles, Robert Hardman says Wills made a “direct request” that his in-laws be invited to the Coronation.

Despite apparently limited numbers, he secured them prominent seats at Westminster Abbey, with Pippa and James also given places.

Hardman indicates the irony of their presence, versus the lack of attendance from some other royals.

Those who knew the Middleton children at school said the family was notorious for “doing everything to the very highest of standards”.

“There were huge picnics on sports days, the smartest tennis rackets, that kind of thing. It made the rest of us all feel rather ­hopeless,” observed a fellow parent.

“Ultimately, Carole has played a blinder as a mother.

“Not only are all of her children unfairly good-looking, they are also famously charming.

“Always the first to write a thank you letter, they dance all night and are still the first up in the morning, plumping cushions and washing up.”

Carole Goldsmith — brought up in a council flat and later a terraced house in Southall, West London — left school at 16 and worked as a secretary before ­getting a job as ground staff for BA at Heathrow.

It was there she met Michael, a flight dispatcher, whom she married in 1980.

Seven years later, she established her own business, Party Pieces, which she said was born at the kitchen table after she struggled to find paper plates for Kate’s fifth birthday bash.

At first, she was simply preparing party bags for the parents of her daughters’ school friends, but over time the business grew sufficiently to take over a shed in their garden and eventually its own premises.

At one point it employed 30 staff and was estimated to be worth £30million at the height of the online shopping boom.

According to Robert Lacey’s book, Battle Of Brothers, all three Middleton children modelled for pictures in their parents’ sales material.

The book also cites a tart description of Carole Middleton’s hard-headed trading style.

“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth most of the time, but she was a ferocious negotiator,” recalled one of her suppliers.

“I remember her almost screaming down the phone on one occasion when I refused to drop my price.

“People could hear her on the other side of the office.”

But as the Middletons took a less active role in the business, the company began to go downhill.

Last year Party Pieces was reported to be in financial trouble, with debts of £2.6million.

It has since been bought out of administration by entrepreneur James Sinclair.