Not to sound like an old fart (I mean…), but in my day, every teenager had a part-time job and/or summer job. Before I turned 16, I was a babysitter, and once I got my driver’s license, I got a real part-time job at a retail-catalog company. In college, I worked as an office assistant part-time during the school year, I worked at a photo shop, and I had various other part-time gigs. But I’ve noticed that so many high schoolers are booked and busy with other stuff, and part-time jobs and summer jobs seem to be a thing of the past? Even when I watched that terrifically dumb and completely enjoyable The Summer I Turned Pretty, I was like “girl, it’s past time for you to get a summer job!” It’s weird. It’s even weirder for royals, because they treat “having a job” as some minor curiosity which only applies to peasants. Well, Lady Louise Windsor decided to spend her summer working part-time at a garden center and it’s literally front-page news.
The Queen’s granddaughter Lady Louise Windsor has been working several days a week at a garden centre over the summer for around the minimum wage, it has been revealed. The 18-year-old daughter of Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex has been earning £6.63 per hour since finishing her A-levels in June – despite living in a £30million mansion in Bagshot Park, Surrey.
At the garden centre – the location for which has not been disclosed – Lady Louise is said to have been helping out on the tills, greeting customers, pruning and potting plants.
While the security arrangements for her job have also not been made public, her parents Edward and Sophie are thought to only receive police protection when on official duties and engagements.
One shopper told The Sun: ‘I knew the cost-of-living crisis was bad, but I didn’t think I’d ever see a grandchild of the Queen working in a garden centre.’
Another customer added: ‘The staff seemed to adore her. It’s not every day you buy your begonias off a royal.’ And a third, who was served by the royal, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it was Lady Louise, I had to look twice. She is a really modest and sweet young woman who is polite and attentive to customers. She seemed to be loving the job. You’d never imagine the Queen’s granddaughter would take on a role working behind a till.’
Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said: ‘Isn’t it wonderful the Queen’s granddaughter rolled her sleeves up and got her hands dirty with a summer job before going to university — just like any other normal teenager.’
Lady Louise studied AS-level English, history, politics and drama at her school in Ascot, near the family’s home of Bagshot Park. It is not known which subjects she took at A-level or what grades she achieved.
Truly, good for Louise. She’s probably not doing it for the money, although who knows – as a teenager, I always got a rush from having my own spending money, money I earned myself and I could use any way I wanted (gas and going to the movies, mostly). I bet Louise has worked more hours at the garden center than Kate Middleton ever worked at Jigsaw, her only real (brief) job.
The Sun had an op-ed called “THE SUN SAYS Late Prince Philip would’ve been proud of Lady Louise Windsor for taking up summer job.” LOL. Surely, we don’t need to invoke a dead man in this situation? Can’t we just say “good for Louise, we’re collectively proud of her”?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Instar and Backgrid.
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- Netherlands and France Out – London, UK -20220329- Memorial Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey. -PICTURED: Lady Louise Windsor -PHOTO by: Dutch Press Photo/Cover Images/INSTARimages.com -51352001.jpg This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded
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- Lady Louise Windsor attends the Sunday service at the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Windsor, following the announcement on Friday April 9, of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh at the age of 99. Picture date: Sunday April 11, 2021. Prince Philip, was the longest-serving consort in British history.,Image: 604743172, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, daughter Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, son James Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex departs a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673801213, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor departs a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673801221, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Lady Louise Windsor on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the fly past after Trooping The Colour – The Queen’s Birthday Parade, London, UK – 02 Jun 2022,Image: 696383982, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock / Avalon
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- Windsor, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of The Royal Family attend day three of the Royal Windsor Horse Show, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, UK. Pictured: Lady Louise Windsor BACKGRID USA 3 JULY 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Windsor, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of The Royal Family attend day three of the Royal Windsor Horse Show, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, UK. Pictured: Lady Louise Windsor BACKGRID USA 3 JULY 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK – London, UK -20220603- The Royal Family attend a Jubilee Reception at The Guildhall, hosted by The Lord Mayor of London -PICTURED: Lady Louise Windsor -PHOTO by: John Rainford/Cover Images/INSTARimages.com -51631184.jpg This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded Featuring: Lady Louise Windsor Where: London, England, United Kingdom When: 03 Jun 2022 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images/INSTA **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
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- USA Rights Only, London, UK – 20220603- British royals leaving the National Service of Thanksgiving for the Queen as part of her platinum jubilee celebrations at Saint Paul Cathedral in London. -PICTURED: Lady Louise Windsor -PHOTO by: Nieboer/DDP/INSTARimages.com -ddp_17352415 This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded Featuring: Lady Louise Windsor Where: London, UK, United Kingdom When: 03 Jun 2022 Credit: Nieboer/DDP/INSTARimages.com **USA Rights Only**
Kate needs to learn from her!
She’s already had more work experience than kate then.
And summer jobs aren’t a thing of the past. I’ve had a job since i was 15. I am 22 now. So have most of my friends.
Yes, same. And when I was in my last year of highschool I worked two jobs. I didn’t stop working two jobs until I was in my twenties.
Why are her hands so red? Is that a circulation thing?
It’s probably just the sun. She may wear long sleeved shorts to ride or drive and her hands are tan or red from the exposure.
maybe. looks more like photo editing though. i have a really nice family photo except my left arm looks like it died due to the filters applied
Could be POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). I often have blood pooling in hands and feet. Not a diagnosis for Lady Louise, just a personal anecdotal experience.
I have it as well, and I so rarely see other people who have such dramatic and noticeable pooling. I’m super super pale though, and I’ve always been paranoid when I wear shorts/skirts that it’s super noticeable. Which it is, to me, but stuff kids say to you when you’re a kid sticks.
As with you, I’m not trying to diagnose her. The pooling in her hands is very similar to what happens with my hands and feet and I have POTS as well. She may just have not so great circulation, that can cause blood pooling like this as well.
Good for Lady Louise, it sounds like she’s learning a lot and enjoying herself this summer.
I noticed the same thing. they’re terribly chapped and raw looking. we used to call it “dishpan hands”. these days probably caused by using too much hand sanitizer or scrubbing. if it were me I’d be going to bed every night in white gloves with a load of vaseline on them.
Louise does carriage racing, it explains the redness on her hands.
Good for her. I think Sophie and Edward were weird with the pro-Louise push last year, but overall I think they seem like good parents (based on what we can tell) and having a job is only going to benefit Louise. It’s not even about the money – its about sticking to a schedule, keeping your commitments, learning that sometimes you have to do something that maybe you don’t want to do, etc. Those are all good things for her to learn.
Kate also had that yacht job.
But good for Louise The more she stays out of that fish bowl the better.
Hah yeah, this is how you do it Kate. Good for Louise 🙂
Same, been working full time since 15, and I’m 34, so 🤷♀️ All my friends were the same, working at least part time since 14-17. However, we grew up in poverty, so ymmv
Good for her! And it seems like she’s enjoying her job.
I am glad she is no where near the Cambridge kids age wise, because you know she would have been some ones scapegoat as she comes of age.
Bagshot Park and not having to meet any real world obligations notwithstanding, the Wessexes seem to have given their children, at least Louise, a pretty normal upbringing. Good for her! A summer job before leaving home for university shows she’s taking steps toward independence. I hope it all works out well for her.
I never had a summer job, mostly because that’s not a thing here in Germany. Summer vacation is 6 weeks. If you were lucky enough to go on vacation, that’s 4 weeks. Nobody hires you for 4 weeks. But we did have part-time jobs, weekend job. I didn’t realize at the time how underpaid we were. There was no minimum wage back then. There still wasn’t one when I worked during uni for €5/hour.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if she told her parents to stop with the publicity and just let her work this job she liked.
Here in the US, the federal minimum wage only applies to full time employees. I remember the summer I graduated high school, I worked at Dairy Queen. My first paycheck I noted wasn’t minimum wage & when I complained, that’s what I was told. They had me work 37.5 hours that week & had me scheduled for 38.5 the next, all so they wouldn’t have to pay me minimum wage. (And no free food!) So I got a job in the kitchen of a nursing home, got my 40 hours/week, got my minimum wage, and got free meals!
Whoever told you that the minimum wage only applies to full-time employees lied to you. It absolutely applies to part time employees (otherwise no employer would allow hourly employees to work more than 35 hours a week, ever).
Minimum wage does not apply to certain categories of employees – tipped employees, certain disabled employees, many agricultural workers and others who work “by the piece.”
They may have categorized you as “youth working for the first time, in their first 90 days of employment” to get away with it. But that category only applies for the first 90 days, then they have to pay minimum wage.
@liz: Ha! No doubt they lied, and as I was just a 17YO working for the first time I didn’t know any better. They were shady all around. They had me come in for a meeting on my day off–they said it was required of all, whether you were scheduled for work or not. And shortly after I quit, I was contacted by police who were investigating something related to the owners. The place closed down later that summer. I worked there all of eight days! The folks at the nursing home were way nicer.
What! Minimum wage only for full time employees? Well that is so unfair. Exploiting the young students… 🙁
My 15 year old granddaughter just had a part-time summer job in California. 20 hrs a week @ $16.50 per hour which is the minimum wage here. Doesn’t matter if it’s full or part time. No benefits but she also didn’t have to become a Teamster as the Dairy Queen student employees do.
Good for her experiencing real life. Not “normal,” because I maintain that none of these goobers can live “normally” no matter what – palace life ain’t it – but real life in which she actually bumps against regular humans.
It would be interesting if she found her calling in landscape design or something similar. A Capability Brown for the twenty first century, if you will. Of course this is just a part time job that sounds like ringing, but you never know what exposure will do.
I’m torn on the issue of kids working summer jobs. Obviously it teaches them great life lessons, but it also suppresses living wages for those who work that level job day to day. A restaurant local to me made a big public statement they were closing because adults wouldn’t work for minimum wage, and he could only rely on teenaged, and then invoked Ayn Rand and just *eye roll*
I think it depends where you are – In Canada, most teens are working summers and employers rely on them for short term busy periods. Many teens need the income too – to save for school, support their families, etc. I think the issue for adults in these jobs is that it is not a living wage (even at $15 per hour minimum in Ontario) and the hours are tough to manage in terms of daycare. In Ontario you can only pay the student minimum (13.75 in Ontario) until the teens turn 18, and most places won’t hire until they are 15 so I am not sure they are taking jobs from adults. Employers who rely solely on teens are getting what they pay for – no work experience, often lack communication skills and confidence to deal with difficult customers etc.
This story sounds like a plant. How was the Sun able to interview customers? Louise is university age now, I suspect the Wessexes leaked this story to get the press to back off. This story coming on the same day it was announced that Louise is going to St. Andrew’s seems fishy to me.
And the comments were all ‘my god, a royal working!’; where were the ’bout time they supported themselves’ comments?
She needs money to buy her own clothes instead of hand me downs from her Mom’s closet
The ugly clothes that Louise wears could just have well been hand me downs from Kate’s closet.
Good for her, they mostly seem to have [invented?] comments from old biddies but retail is real “slice of life” stuff and I can’t imagine even 10% of customers recognised her.
I wonder if the journalist approached customers as they left the store and told them who was behind the counter.
I doubt I’d recognize many of the royals if they were wearing work appropriate clothes for a gardening center. I bet most of the customers thought “that clerk looks like Edwards daughter” and think nothing more of it. Because you really wouldn’t expect to see royalty behind the counter.
Good for her!
I had a part time job when I was in high school that became full time in the summer to cover the vacations of the full-timers. It taught me how to get around the city without my parents, how to manage break & lunchtimes for my best advantage, the responsibility of holding a job, and exposed me to a diverse world of people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds, both customers and coworkers. And I was so proud when my mom started asking me for directions on the T because she knew I was much more familiar than she was.
The only thing rich people can’t buy is a sense of normalcy. It must feel incredibly exciting and exotic for her to have a normal job. It’s great it doesn’t come across as poverty cosplay.
I remember reading an interview with Lisa-Marie Presley; when she was a teenager, she got herself a part-time job at a local burger joint & was so proud of herself, but then her mom, Priscilla, made her quit saying ‘you can’t do that! you’re Elvis’ daughter! you’ll be swarmed!’ or something like that. Lisa-Marie never had a chance at a ‘normal’ life.
Happy to see that this article mentioned that Prince Edward and his family live in a £30 million mansion. But how many bathrooms do they have?
That sounds like a great summer job! I would have loved to work in a garden center at her age. She likes being outside and hanging out with horses so this kind of job makes sense to me for her. Good for her for keeping herself busy before she goes to uni.
I worked as a camp counselor for 5 summers because 1) it was an easy job to get 2) there are lots of summer camps by me. I tried getting a few professional internships but they were very competitive and a lot of them are unpaid (still a thing now though people act like unpaid internships are a thing of the past). I preferred being outside and actually getting paid, even if it wasn’t much than sitting in an office all day making zero money.
I 100% wish I had thought to work in a garden centre (or even a grocery store). I think I would’ve learned a lot about keeping plants alive (not my forte) and I would not have come home every day smelling like a french fry. Le sigh.
Good on Lady Louise – she seems shy and fairly sensible. I hope she can avoid being in the fishbowl as long as possible.
This is great experience for her, whether or not she decides to pursue a public role – gaining self-confidence, starting to become independent, and having to interact with different people (customers as well as colleagues and managers) is all to the good.
As others have pointed out, though, it does feel like someone is hoping to draw some shady comparisons with the down to earth, hardworking Louise and those who spent their teens and twenties waitying around for their prince to call. Or playacting as an air ambulance pilot.
Maybe this is retaliation for all of those stories earlier in the week which purported to be about Edward being the favourite, but were actually just an excuse to remind everyone that Edward quit military school after only a few months.
Good for her! It’s good that she can be in the real world. I hope she is planning her escape, because she is at the age where she will soon start dating and boy, are they going to hound her when they’ll know
I really hope that Louise shuns the HRH title and makes a place for herself outside the Firm. I would like to think that Edward and Sophie doesn’t want to see their daughter (or son) have to beg for money from C or W. I suspect St. Andrews was chosen because it sounds like security won’t be an issue. Afterall, she probably doesn’t get her own unless Edward pays.
Make your own path, Louise.
I hope this will be a motivation for her.
Hey i got a salary now. It feel good. I dont need to beg for money from the queen like my parents.
Wish her the best at the university and go explore the world and remember you can support yourself without demeaning for tax money that suppose to go to the poor.