The sun was shining and he had decided that he rather enjoyed life in the ‘auld grey toun’. Most students move out of halls in their second year, and along with three friends, one of whom was Kate, he had rented a smart flat in Hope Street, which belonged to friends of friends. It was another central and attractive part of the town and a conventional move for wealthier students. His other flatmates were Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale, a friend of a friend and formerly at Westonbirt (a girls’ boarding school half a mile from Highgrove, many of whose pupils he’d met at local pubs and parties). The four friends had decided it would be fun to share a house several months before, and the combination worked well. William and Kate were still nothing more than good mates when they moved in, but as the year progressed their relationship shifted a gear. As William said in their engagement interview, ‘It just sort of blossomed from there really. We just saw more of each other, hung out a bit more and did stuff.’ Hope Street had innumerable student flats and there was no shortage of parties that went on noisily into the night.
