OPINION: DEAR MEGHAN, THIS IS MY SECRET SURVIVAL GUIDE TO COTSWOLDS
I’d be surprised if Prince Harry and Meghan have finished unpacking and already the nation is abuzz with speculation about everything from schools to houses to coffee-shop preferences, but here in the Cotswolds most people are decidedly nonchalant about the whole thing.
In fact, most of us locals are just hoping they don’t get a security detail that disrupts traffic like JD Vance did.
The Sussexes may be following a well-trodden path from California to the only part of rural England rich Americans have heard of, but how they will fit in is another matter entirely.
The Cotswolds has changed a great deal since they last lived here in 2018, shortly after their wedding, when they rented a house in the Tews. In some ways, Meghan will find it entirely simpatico – in many others, she may well be baffled by the codes of behaviour that now govern life here.
Inside the Cotswolds’ Competing Social Tribes
My house is on the Oxfordshire side, within the so-called golden triangle of Daylesford, Soho Farmhouse and Estelle Manor. My neighbours are absolutely lovely and although they must see me as Down From London – DFL, in the accepted country shorthand – it hasn’t stopped them from welcoming me into their homes or popping over to mine.
Meghan will relate – in Montecito, she and Harry were known to drop in on neighbours such as Oprah Winfrey.
I have had a house in the area long enough to know it is less one place than a collection of competing tribes – and the trick is knowing which one is yours.
Where will Meghan find her new BFFs? Among the cashmere and Le Chameau prep school mummies, whose dinner party circuit has suddenly become a very hot ticket indeed? Or the horsier Gloucestershire set, whose point-to-points and agricultural shows already attract a ruddy-cheeked minor royal or two?
Harry and Meghan Face a Whole New Social Set
Could Prince Harry possibly find new pals among the Cameron-era hug-a-hoodie Conservatives of Chipping Norton, or will it be the scruffy old money toffs of Badminton – even if Meghan instinctively prefers the liberal London blow-ins who still coo over the honey-coloured stone?
Each set, they will quickly learn, has its own preferred pubs, schools, guest lists and rules of belonging.
So here is a short primer for the Cotswolds newbies. Don’t be misled by the chocolate-box cottages and selfie-snapping tourists – there’s very much more to us than meets the eye. Indeed, Montecito social circles may start to feel positively parochial in comparison…
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