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Prince William delivered 'impressive' speech at the age of 10

A royal commentator has recalled the moment she witnessed one of Prince William’s first speeches at the age of 10.

Victoria Arbiter lived at Kensington Palace during her teenage years, when her father Dickie Arbiter was the Queen’s press secretary.

She speaks to Yahoo UK’s ‘The Royal Box,’ about attending Princess Diana’s Christmas party at the palace in 1992, where George Michael and Elton John were among the high-profile guests.

“Diana was standing with us and she had asked William, as the man of the family, to stand up and make a speech. She just wanted him to thank everyone for coming,” Arbiter explains.

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Princess Diana with Prince William and then with William and Harry, in 1992. [Photos: Getty]
Princess Diana with Prince William and then with William and Harry, in 1992. [Photos: Getty]

“And William, at 10 years old, he stood up on a box and thanked all the guests for coming, and it was an incredibly impressive thing for a 10-year-old to do.

“She [Diana] was so proud, she was beaming.”

Arbiter remembers that Prince Harry, who was about eight years old at the time, was tugging on his mum’s skirt trying to get her attention during the party.

“She was like ‘shut up Harry, one minute, one minute.’

“I think that was another example of their personalities, Harry just busy and wanting to be in the midst of everything and chatty.

“I suppose really what he shares with Diana is her mischievous, cheeky, naughty side, that you see play out.

“William embodies so many of her qualities as well but in a sort of much quieter fashion, I suppose you sort of see it in a stand-back kind of way.”

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Picture From File:Diana Princess Of Wales, Prince William & Prince Harry Visit The 'Thorpe Park' Amusement Park. . (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
Princess Diana, Prince Harry and Prince William at Thorpe Park in 1993. [Photo: Getty]

In December 1992, then prime minister John Major publicly announced Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ "amicable separation,” to the House of Commons.

Their divorce was finalised in 1996. Following that, Diana announced her resignation from over 100 patronages, retaining only six - Centrepoint, English National Ballet, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Leprosy Mission, National AIDS Trust, and the Royal Marsden Hospital

William and Harry were just 15 and 12 when their mother tragically died in a car accident in Paris, in 1997.