James Middleton: The papers say I’m Catherine’s ‘cross-dressing brother’ if I wear drag to a party

The younger brother of the Princess of Wales, 37, on family get-togethers and his love of faithful friends

How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: James Middleton
My one-year-old son, Inigo, has been a great sleeper right from the start, so if he wakes up in the night there’s something wrong. My wife Alizée and I normally wake up around 6.30am, so we’re ahead of him. We have a cup of tea in bed and he usually joins us.
I go down to let the dogs out. We have six. Nine times out of 10 I’m in a dressing gown or boxer shorts. We might wake up grumpy, happy or exhausted, but dogs start every day so excited. They’re not angry if you didn’t give them much attention the night before.
We try to have breakfast as a trio. We have some cream Legbar hens, which lay beautiful pale-green eggs, so we normally have them scrambled, with those part-bake baguettes. Alizée and I share the cooking. Normally by then we’re on to plunger coffee with the radio on. Inigo loves Bob Marley.
After breakfast it’s dog walk time again. Sometimes we’ll stop off for a swim in the river. When I was a child I’d spend all possible time outdoors. I was terrible at computer games. If a friend came over we’d play on a tractor or something instead. At weekends, I would often be dragged to watch my sisters Catherine and Pippa in sports matches, so I would take the headmaster’s wife’s sheepdog for a walk. Now I know I have ADD, which explains a lot.
We’re on a farm, between Reading and Newbury in West Berkshire, so we tend to the animals. It starts with a loop to check the fencing is upright. We have a small flock of Herdwick sheep. The old wisdom is that if you want to keep them, you put them on the other side of the fence so they escape into your field.
I have one in particular who grew up with the dogs during lockdown. He’s called Captain, named after Captain Tom. He is certainly not for eating.
We tend to skip lunch, so as not to break up the day and feel sluggish afterwards. I found my 20s really challenging. I’ve only figured out who I am after going through depression. I wish I hadn’t had to go through it to find it. But if you don’t have hard times you can’t appreciate the good ones. There was an added pressure when Catherine and William started dating. I’m famous by default; the association has never been my choice.
There are certain things I’ve learnt, like not to wear drag to a Hallowe’en party because you’ll find yourself in the papers as a “cross-dressing brother”. But I can’t look back thinking, “How would I have done things differently.” The peace of the countryside helps maintain our mental wellbeing; it was part of our reason for moving out of London after 11 years. It sounds like a joke, but we try to live like our dogs. They’re not worrying about tomorrow or yesterday.
We’ll often stop at my parents’ house for tea or supper. My sisters and I are all within 30 minutes’ drive, so there is often an aunt or a cousin passing through, too. The cousins all play their role in looking after Inigo – there’s seven of them altogether at the moment. I think they’re all impressed at how much of a mess Inigo can make. But there’s lots of laughter and giggles about. Even when I had my depression I recognised the importance of family, and rather than one person being burdened with it all, it’s shared. I think any challenge that a family goes through is one that brings them together.
My wife is French, so she predominantly speaks French to Inigo. I’m having to learn a lot of the words pretty quickly. We have a whole shelf dedicated to cheese, which we’ll always have before pudding. Comté is my favourite.
I’ll take the dogs out again, normally before I take my pants off. We’ve been rewatching Outnumbered, which is even funnier when you’re a parent. We’d love to expand the family, but it’s never straightforward.
I love the idea of reading something, but normally one of us falls asleep with the light on.