JAMES MIDDLETON: The second I knew William was proper for Catherine

He has already movingly recalled reaching rock bottom while struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Here, James Middleton reveals the diagnoses that changed his life and what it was really like growing up with Catherine and Pippa as big sisters…

2017

MY GP wants me to see a psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Pereira. Reluctantly I agree. But I’m impatient to get myself fixed, irrationally annoyed when his secretary says there is a four-day wait. I’m close to the edge. It feels too long.

I don’t sleep for four days and nights. Pippa comes over, but I double-lock the front door and refuse to let her in. I want to stay detached from everyone until I am mended.

There is no point in anything any more. I give up. I just want this darkness to lift. Otherwise I have no desire to go on living.

My appointment with Dr Pereira is at Borough Market in South London. Ella is with me. I’m almost willing the doctor to tell me she can’t come into the appointment so that I have a reason to back out.

The receptionist greets me with a huge smile. ‘Ah, who’s this?’ she asks me, stroking Ella.

Immediately I am comforted, disarmed. I forget why I am there and start chatting about Ella.

Ten minutes on, the receptionist, so engrossed in our dog conversation, has forgotten to let Dr Pereira know I’m there. He comes out to see if I’ve arrived.

‘Do you mind if I bring Ella in with me?’ I ask. To my surprise, he says: ‘She’s more than welcome.’

Dr Pereira asks me to start at the beginning, to go back to my earliest memory. ‘Here we go,’ I think, the words unvoiced. ‘The problem is here and now. Let’s fix it and move on.’

Two hours later I am drained, tripping over my words.

‘I want to know what’s wrong with me,’ I say. ‘What is the solution? Please give me a prescription and I’ll be on my way.’

I’m still frustrated, confused and mildly irritated by the apparent irrelevance of the questions.

‘We have to try to unravel why you feel as you do. It isn’t going to be a quick fix,’ the doctor tells me.

That isn’t what I want to hear. I want reassurance that everything is fine, that if I go away and collect some tablets I’ll feel better.

Instead, Dr Pereira asks me to book another appointment.

‘Can you bring Ella along with you to the next session?’ he asks.

And that is a solace. Ella is welcome. Actually, she is invited. I know next time will be easier.

Catherine and Pippa are, respectively, five and three years older than me. Growing up surrounded by three strong, capable women felt like having three mothers. But my sisters never dismissed me as their little squirt of a brother who wasn’t worthy of their attention. On the contrary, they let me join in their games and included me in their friendships. They still do. While at prep school together, they would fuss over me like mother hens, reporting back to our parents on my many (mild) misdemeanours, more in a spirit of concern than because they were telltales.

I wasn’t wilfully undisciplined, just mischievous. One teacher, Mr Outram, had a golden retriever; another, Mr Embury, a poodle. I’d clamour to take both dogs for walks and thought that I’d be given extra credit for my sense of responsibility and helpfulness.

Had I not been dyslexic, and my mind a constantly bubbling cauldron of restless energy that made concentration on schoolwork almost impossible, I’d have loved to have become a vet.

But I knew I’d never make the grade academically. As I grew older I pleaded with Mum and Dad for a dog. I craved a companion in my adventures. A friend who loved me unconditionally – without judgment or ridicule. Because I was an unusual boy. Try as I might, I could not get enthused by football – either spectating or playing – and would rather tinker around with a tractor than kick a ball.

It is ironic, really, that my parents finally gave in to my pleas for a dog when I was 13 and just going off to boarding school. To my unending delight, Tilly, a golden retriever puppy, arrived.

As I stroked her silky golden head and said my tearful goodbyes when I left for my first day at Marlborough College, I was choked with sadness. Consumed by homesickness I willed away the seconds until the weekend when I’d be back at Bucklebury.

At Marlborough, nobody knew about, or made allowances for, the quirks of the slightly scrawny Middleton Minor who had arrived in the wake of his two accomplished big sisters. It was assumed that I would be as talented as they were at sports, and I was automatically put into the first team for rugby, but in my debut match I got so spectacularly pummelled I was instantly relegated to a much lower division.

Comments like, ‘Are you really a Middleton?’ echoed round the changing room and pitches. They cut to my heart.

Now, as an adult, I recognise the amiable, mischievous rogue I was, always straining to break free from the classrooms that I felt imprisoned me. I hated being confined by four walls. Study was anathema to me and the written word baffling. Words jumped and blurred on the page.

When it was my turn to read aloud in class, my efforts bore no resemblance to the sentences printed in front of me. I remember the laughter that rippled round the room as I misread words and stumbled over pronunciations. My interests set me apart, too. While most boys plastered their walls with posters of football teams or bikini-clad girls, mine were festooned with pictures of Land Rovers and engines. I squirrelled away old car parts and cycled to the local garage to watch intently as the mechanic tinkered with greasy machinery.

But dogs never judged me. Mum asked repeatedly if I wanted to bring friends home. But truthfully all I wanted to do was to see Tilly. Whenever Mum drove to fetch me from school, she would be full of questions. But I ignored them and asked instead about our dog. I’d jump into the boot of the hatchback with Tilly and travel alongside her, chatting to her all the way home. Throughout my teens, my two obsessions, with dogs and all things mechanical, flourished.

Weeks before I am due to turn 18, in the spring of 2005, my father asks what I’d like for my birthday. He gives me a choice: a little second-hand Peugeot 206 or a dilapidated and ancient tractor.

A tractor? Yes, he knows in his heart that I’ll choose the quirky option – and I do. So he drives me to Devon. It’s a proper father-and-son road trip and we set off at the crack of dawn to find the farm where the venerable old vehicle is for sale. It still has its original number-plate. And although it’s in urgent need of a lick of paint, it starts on the button. The engine has a lovely purr to it.

Dad and I load it on to the trailer. As we drive home, I reflect on how thrilled I am with my gift.

Catherine and Pippa received beautiful jewellery when they turned 18. I have my tractor.

Meanwhile, I do so badly in my final school exams that my poor mum is reduced to tears. Dad says my expensive education has been ‘a waste of money’.

After a year of resitting my A-levels, I scrape into Edinburgh University with the minimum permitted grades.

For all my reservations, I shall be eternally thankful for my time there because it is thanks to Ben, a university friend, that I find my adored dog Ella.

Ben’s brother Luke and his wife live on Islay, in the Inner Hebrides. There, I meet Luke’s black cocker spaniel Zulu, a dog of such character and mischief that he instantly charms me.

I conclude they are exactly the breed for me. Easy-going, affectionate and fizzing with restless energy, they crave the attention I’m longing to give.

‘If Zulu ever sires puppies, I’d love one,’ I tell them. Actually, they say, the deed has already been done – with Mabel, a lemon-coloured cocker spaniel.

Mabel’s owners agree to let me meet the litter. I’m set on a girl – it would be wonderful to breed from her one day – and there she is. Ella. I give her the name that has been circling in my mind for months and it suits her perfectly.

I hold her, this tiny, wriggling, sightless bundle, and suddenly everything makes sense. From the second I hold her, I am in love.

When Ella is eight weeks old – still tiny, but weaned and vaccinated – she is ready to leave the pack. I set off to bring her home to Berkshire.

Mum and Dad have gone on holiday, and Catherine and William are staying at our family home. William has now become a fixture in our lives, established as Catherine’s boyfriend, a welcome member of the clan.

I have not told him or Catherine about Ella. They know I am getting a puppy, but they don’t realise her arrival is imminent.

So I let Ella announce herself; place her on the doorstep and allow her to make her entrance. She bounds into the kitchen to introduce herself to Catherine and William. ‘I thought you sounded a bit sheepish about something when you phoned,’ smiles William.

‘But whose is she?’ butts in Catherine. ‘She’s mine.’ ‘You’re not serious. Do Mum and Dad know?’

‘Er… no.’

‘So how are you going to tell them?’ ‘I haven’t got that far yet.’

There is laughter; I think even longing for them to have a dog of their own one day.

Ella learns quickly. In those early days, routine and discipline are my watchwords. I am strict while she is learning. She can have more freedom later. And once she has learned the rudiments of good behaviour and manners – and we’re bonded by mutual trust – we can begin our adventures together.

But first there is the small matter of telling Mum and Dad. I figure the best time is while they are on holiday. If their response is unfavourable, the phone signal can suddenly become a problem. I call them in the Caribbean. We talk about university. I’m taking resits, having failed my first year. My parents are intent on me staying the course. In my mind I have already left. The conversation falters. Ella, hungry, sets up an insistent yapping. ‘What’s that?’ asks Mum. ‘James has got a dog,’ shouts Catherine above Ella’s barking.

‘What? Are you serious?’ (We’ve been here before. I can imagine the incredulous eye-rolling.)

‘But just wait till you see her. You’ll love her,’ I insist, before adding without much conviction – or truthfulness – ‘There are lots of students with dogs. I’ll make it work.’ What no one but me knows at this point is that my tenure as a student has a very short lease to run. Although I set off back to Edinburgh in January with Ella in tow, I know I will not be staying.

But I’m full of ideas and I decide to set up my own cake kit company. Mum and Dad have their online business selling banners, balloons, tableware; everything you’d want for a child’s party – except the cake. And every party needs a cake, doesn’t it?

My student flat in Edinburgh becomes the testing centre for my creations. My friends are, of course, delighted to oblige with their feedback.

It is early in 2010. I still have a toehold in Edinburgh but spend more time in London, where Pippa and Catherine are not too thrilled to have their little brother disrupting their orderly, tidy existence, strewing damp clothes over the bathroom floor, leaving unwashed crockery in the sink and letting Ella pad wet-pawed across the living room carpet.

But they bustle round in their kind, sisterly way, clearing up after their messy little brother. Protective, they prefer me to be with them than on my own. They can keep an eye on me, make sure I’m getting up in the morning. And they’re equally glad Ella is with me, because they know she is my prop, my comfort.

By now, William has been dating Catherine for six years, so I know him well. But I remember putting him through his paces when we first met. Did he deserve my sister? He had to earn my trust.

It helped of course that William was so genuinely fond of Ella. When he first encountered her as a tiny puppy at Bucklebury, he was smitten. He’d had a black Labrador, Widgeon, as a boy, and when Widgeon died, he left an empty space. I felt William was pining for a dog when Ella was around.

I know, too, that Ella gave him a good excuse to escape the fiercely competitive nature of the Middleton family, which emerged every time we played our favourite fast-paced card game, Racing Demon.

William would flinch at our ruthless determination to win at all costs. He’d be delighted to be the first out, and when no longer compelled to take part, he’d slink off to cuddle Ella. Better still, he’d absent himself from the game entirely. ‘James, does Ella need a walk?’ he’d ask before we’d even started dealing the cards. My sisters and I would exchange a knowing glance: William, for all the competitive rigour of his military training, was happy to be a loser at cards.

When I finally admit to my parents that I’m not actually studying for my degree any more, they cut off my financial support. Dad is exasperated, Mum tearful. Neither understands why I’d choose to throw up this opportunity to further myself in life. So it’s non-negotiable. No university, no money from the Bank of Mum and Dad.

I have to stand on my own two feet, so I’m determined to make a success of the cakes. My best friend, Nick, helps write my business plan. I show it to my godfather, my entrepreneur Uncle Gary, Mum’s brother, who likes the idea. He invests a few thousand pounds, which gives me a flying start and buoys me. I bid on eBay for a static catering trailer and set about converting it – I’m grateful for my practical skills learned as an adolescent – so it’s food-safe and I can make my cakes in it.

My kit-cakes sell well and I develop a method of printing photos onto cupcakes. I find myself supplying them to glamorous events in London. But socially – away from the production line – I’m at sea, floundering in a milieu that is completely alien to me. I do not feel at ease among the social butterflies, the gorgeously clothed, the fashionistas. I am on the edge, an observer looking on.

Now, seven years later, Dr Pereira has told me: ‘James, I believe you have clinical depression.’ Then he throws me a massive curveball. ‘I’m starting to think you might also have attention deficit disorder [ADD].’ I laugh. It is the first time I’ve laughed in a long time. For years, I’ve felt misunderstood, that no one quite gets me. All the quirks and foibles of my character start to make sense. ADD, an adult variant of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – which is associated with disruptive children – produces a range of symptoms, some of which are like autism. And when I’m told I have it, it is a revelation. It explains so much. It is the reason I have trouble focusing, why my mind wanders into extravagant daydreams, why simple tasks like making my bed assume the same enormity as filing my tax return. Dr Pereira wants to send me to a cognitive behavioural therapist. He also wants me to learn more about ADD and gives me a book about it. ‘Highlight the bits that apply to you,’ he says. By the time I’ve read it, I’ve highlighted the whole book in green and orange. It is as if the entire thing has been written just for me. It all applies to me.

The knowledge that others feel exactly as I do cheers me. I am so comforted by the book that I buy copies for all the family: Mum and Dad, Catherine and William, Pippa and James.

I hope the book will help their understanding of me. Certainly it helps me know why I start every job thinking I am doomed to fail; why I’ve never learned to follow instructions; why some people write me off as lazy, stupid, a mess. It is often the case that your family, who love and know you best, are also the most critical of you. Mum and Dad found it difficult to talk to me about my mental health, because they felt they knew me better than I did.

Their intentions were kind. They were hugely supportive. But some of their suggestions were not constructive. They were resistant to therapy. And their biggest worry was that I would become dependent on antidepressant drugs.

I, in turn, was defensive, annoyed. I’d already made up my mind that I didn’t want to take prescription drugs for my depression. My parents’ involvement felt like needless interference.

They were uncomfortable with the fact that I’d been labelled ‘clinically depressed’. To people of their generation, I can understand why it was concerning. Society is only just starting to break through the stigma. Catherine and Pippa understood, though. They helped to convey what was going on to our parents because my sisters had been exposed to similar experiences through friends who’d had depression.

Meanwhile, I’d had a board meeting with the newly appointed CEO and fellow directors of my cake company Boomf!, who were aware of my fragile state of mind. How could they fail to be?

I’d been scared to tell them I had clinical depression. I thought they’d spurn me, that deals would fall through, that I was hindering the business. I saw myself as a risk. But they assured me it wasn’t so. I was so fortunate they were encouraging and supportive, which meant I signed off on extended leave from work.

I didn’t know it then, but I would never go back. My life was about to take a new, and completely unexpected, turn.

• Adapted from Meet Ella by James Middleton (Radar, £22), to be published on September 26. © James Middleton 2024. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 28/09/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.