Thaindian News

London, April 3 (ANI): By asking her wedding guests to donate to an anti-bullying charity, royal bride-to-be Kate Middleton made a tacit admission that she herself was a victim at school.

Former classmates have claimed that Middleton had suffered at the hands of cruel bullies as a teenager.

But Prince William’s fiance never spoke of her ordeal.

Now, the headmistress of the school where Middleton spent just two terms before her parents moved her to exclusive Marlborough College, has told how the shy, sporty teenager may have been affected by the teasing inflicted by ‘insidious’ girls during her time there.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Susan Cameron insisted there was no serious bullying against Middleton at the 10,000 pounds-a-term Downe House School in Cold Ash, Berkshire.

But, choosing her language carefully, she said teasing was part of life at an age when girls can often be cruel.

She said Middleton left because she was unhappy and unsettled and failed to adapt to what was an ‘intense’ environment.

‘If Kate had been really badly bullied I don’t think she would be the girl she is today. That’s my take on the girl she is,” said Cameron, who is now retired and lives in a pretty hamlet near Dorchester, Dorset.

‘But at the time, she may well have felt a fish out of water, or unhappily not in the right place. Certainly I have no knowledge of any serious bullying at all. But there’s what everyone calls bullying, and there’s actual real, miserable bullying where someone has a dreadful time. That certainly didn’t happen,” she added.

Middleton arrived at Downe House, near the Middleton family home, in September 1995.

She had just spent six happy years at the co-educational St Andrew’s school in Pangbourne, boarding for the final two, where she had an established circle of friends.

“I should think it was a bit of a shock to the system coming from a small, happy, co-ed prep school into this rather exhausting girls-only environment,” said Cameron.

“That could be a problem, if you see what I mean. It may be Kate preferred that environment, she was happier having boys around,” she added.

Middleton also discovered that hockey - a game at which she had excelled at St Andrew’s - was not even on the curriculum at Downe House.

Instead, the main sport was lacrosse.

‘Kate may have felt slightly out of things because people at that level would have been well into lacrosse and I think she probably had never played,’ said Cameron.

“She was not selected for the school teams during her time with us, which, given that she was very sporty at her last school, was slightly unusual,” she said.

“It strikes me that could have been a crushing disappointment. You pick up a lacrosse stick and think you’re good at games, then someone says to you, “That’s not how you pick up a lacrosse stick,” and you feel rather squashed. And it’s a delicate age,” she added.

Cameron also admitted that the environment could be a real ‘hotbed of oestrogen’ which didn’t always suit everyone.

“On the whole, the girls were all fairly straightforward. They could be nasty to each other but if someone was unhappy they’d all rally round and cheer people up,” she said.

“It may be that because Kate didn’t settle, some of the pupils took that as implicit criticism or rejection of them and in return innocently mocked her about not being happy and wanting to go home instead,” she added. (ANI)