The Prince and Princess of Wales have celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary by sharing a romantic image of themselves on a secluded Scottish island.
William and Kate were pictured with their arms around each other facing out to sea on the shoreline of the Isle of Mull, where they spent the day celebrating the island’s rural community.
Earlier the prince spoke of his joy at spending his wedding anniversary on Mull with Kate which they visited when they were students.
The picture was posted on the couple’s official social media accounts with a heart emoji and signed with their initials.
It said: “Wonderful to be back on the Isle of Mull. Thank you to everyone for such a warm welcome W & C.”
William and Kate were cheered when they arrived on the island for a two-day visit where they showed off their creative and DIY skills by helping to renovate Aros Hall, a community-owned space in the picturesque coastal town of Tobermory.
The couple wed 14 years ago on April 29 2011 and will spend the night at a self-catering cottage on the island, which has a number of luxury accommodation sites.
The princess debuted a new hair colouring with her balayage look – chestnut-coloured locks with highlights – and was dressed in a tweed jacket, jeans and hiking boots, with William sporting a similar smart casual look.
Maggie Buchanan, an Aros Hall committee member, wished William a happy anniversary and when she told him “it’s nice you’re spending it on Mull”, he replied: “Yes, nice.”
Wielding a nail gun, the future King and Queen helped build a kitchen cabinet to house a community fridge for donated food, and painted delicate flowers on a children’s wall mural in the hall, which is benefitting from a renovation grant from the Waleses’ Royal Foundation.
Kate showed off her new look on the island (Oli Scarff/PA)
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Interior designer Banjo Beale, a presenter of the BBC’s Designing The Hebrides programme and a Mull resident, joined the couple for the visit and is working to ensure the community-owned centre reflects the area’s culture.
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Kate and William reminisced about their visit to the island when they were students, telling volunteers and hall committee members how they visited Tobermory, where the popular BBC children’s TV series Balamory was filmed almost 25 years ago.
William and Kate met at the University of St Andrews in Fife and became friends first before embarking on a romance.
The royal couple visited Tobermory, famous to many parents as the location for the show Balamory (Aaron Chown/PA)
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William told Beale and others: “It was 2003 when we were here. We had a lovely time here – it’s wonderful.”
He said that on their current visit to Scotland, they are “trying to find out what challenges there are, what we can do to help”.
Former Mull GP Jennifer Jack, a committee member at Aros Hall, met the royal couple and later described how William and Kate had come with a group of friends when they visited the island in 2003.
The Prince of Wales helped paint a children’s wall mural in the Aros hall community hub (Oli Scarff/PA)
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She said the friends stayed in separate houses: “The boys were at one end of the street and the girls the other.” And she remembered “standing behind William in the Co-op” at one point during his visit.
In a children’s indoor play area, which has benefitted from the Royal Foundation renovation grant, the couple painted flowers on a mural and met mothers who brought their children to the facility used by family support charity Home-Start Lorn.
Kate chatted to Rachael Canning, who was holding her six-month-old son Rudi, and told her that when she lived on Anglesey, where William was posted as an RAF helicopter pilot, there were no facilities such as the play room and that she would take Prince George to their local Waitrose cafe.
Outside, the couple went on a meet-and-greet, chatting to dozens of well-wishers, and William gave the mother of a fellow Aston Villa supporter a hug when she referenced the football team’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace at the weekend.
The royal couple also met croft owner Jeanette Lynn and her husband Jack Shaw during their visit (Robert Perry/Daily Mail Scotland/PA)
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Vicky Moir, from Staffordshire, said afterwards: “I just asked him what went wrong and he said ‘come here’ and gave me a hug.”
The visit overran as the couple stopped to have lengthy chats with tourists and locals, and they made an impromptu visit to a shop selling handmade soap and spoke to the owner’s children.
They ended their visit to Tobermory by visiting a craft and food market run by Aros Hall and sampled cheese and spirits made by Isle of Mull Cheese.
The couple ended their day cooking a meal of locally sourced produce for residents and schoolchildren at a croft on the west coast of Mull.
They visited Croft 3, a combined croft and restaurant in Fanmore, and after a tour the pair got to work on a small outdoor barbecue, where they cooked parcels of home-made haggis wrapped in chard with a glaze of honey and Mull whisky.
