The Duchess of Cambridge has revealed she would like her baby to be a boy as she attended a St Patrick’s Day parade at a military barracks.
I asked her if she had any names yet and she said no. I said I suppose you’ve got to stick to traditional names
Kate, who is five months pregnant, said the duke, who attended the event with her, would prefer a girl.
The duchess showed patriotic spirit wearing the same green Emilia Wickstead dress coat and shamrock brooch she wore to the event at Mons Barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire, last year.
Before the parade she repeated her role of presenting traditional sprigs of shamrock to the officers and guardsmen, including one to her husband.
Guardsman Lee Wheeler, 29, said: “I was talking to her about the baby, of course. I asked her ‘Do you know if it’s a girl or boy?’ and she said: ‘Not yet’. She said: ‘I’d like to have a boy and William would like a girl’. That’s always the way.
“I asked her if she had any names yet and she said no. I said I suppose you’ve got to stick to traditional names.”
Guardsman Jason Perry, 33, also spoke to Kate about her pregnancy.
“I wished her congratulations and said I hoped everything is fine. She said: ‘Yes it is’. I asked her if she was excited to be having her first child. She said: ‘Very’.”
The soldier said it was “absolutely brilliant” to meet the couple and they both asked him about his 13-and-a-half year career in the army, which has seen him serve two tours of Iraq and one of Northern Ireland.
William sipped on a glass of sherry inside the dining hall while the duchess went without a drink.
The pair was loudly cheered by the soldiers as they entered the room which gave them welcome shelter from the heavy rain. Before going inside, the duke and duchess put on a brave face in the torrential rain as they posed for formal photographs with officers and sergeants.
Kate, who had her hair up and wore an elegant black hat with a felt flower, had her own sprig of shamrock in her lapel and finished off her outfit with black tights and heels.
The last sprig was given to the regiment’s new mascot, seven-month-old Irish wolfhound Domhnall who was carrying out his first public engagement. He was wearing a smart scarlet cape that matched the tunics of the soldiers, and the duchess smiled as she bent down to attach the foliage to his silver collar.
The presentation of sprigs of shamrock by a senior female member of the Royal Family is a century-old tradition started in 1901 by Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII. The role was carried out by the Queen Mother.