Monday 22 January 2018

Kate Middleton's Uncle: a Chip off the Old Block?



THE DUCHESS of Cambridge's wealthy uncle, Gary Goldsmith, 52, was almost legless last Thursday night.  Together with some mates, he was wearing a Willy Eckerslike flat cap and careering around Regent Street in an decidedly unsteady manner.

The brother of Kate Middleton's mother Carole, who is reckoned to be worth £30 million, was later according to the Daily Mail reporter Dam Greenhill, spotted 'relieving himself on the road before heading to McDonald's'.

Last November,  Mr. Goldsmith received a 1-year community order and ordered to take rehabilitation sessions following an incident in which he socked his wife Julie-Ann, 47, to the ground in front on their house as they came back from a charity auction.

Alas, Mr. Goldsmith is not the first in his family to show signs of inebriation.  Another of Kate Middleton's ancestors, was a radical supporter of a dozen Women’s Suffrage Societies called Edith Lupton, who in the 19th century was commited to anarchism being picked up, charged and occasional found guilty of disorderly conduct being the worse for wear in drink.

The Northern Voices' historian Chris Draper on this Blog wrote at length about the anarchist Ms. Lupton's exploits: 
'Described in court as, 'well-educated, 56, an artist and social reformer', Edith denied spitting in the policeman’s face but explained "that it was her custom to show her contempt for the force by going into the middle of the road and expectorating on the ground whenever she met a policeman".'

Some may now be wondering if this kind of odd behaviour runs in the family of the Middletons.  It is not unknown for aristicrats to be anarchists particularly in Russia, think of Prince Kropotkin and Michael Bakunin's ancestors, though not perhaps in Spain.  

Rather than being concerned about how he holds his drink, I'd be more worried about Gary Goldsmith wasting his time going in a McDonald's.

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