Kate Middleton’s mother Carole is calling it a day on Party Pieces – business that made her fortune

Carole and Michael Middleton are heading for a very good coronation. At the event on May 6, where they are expected to attend, their daughter Kate will one day take a delicate step closer to queenhood.

No parent could be prouder of their daughter, who performs her royal and familial duties with such impeccable grace.

As entrepreneurs, they’ll also hope to have some solid pre-Coronation business done by then at their company, Party Pieces, which sells a range of Coronation-themed items on its website.

There’s a Coronation flag line (£4.99 for three metres), featuring the King’s side profile in gold on a Union Jack backdrop, not to mention the Great British Party hats and flag set (£5 ), with paper crowns and tiaras, plus essentials such as Union Jack paper plates (£4.99 for eight).

But for the Middletons, who have built their kitchen table business into an empire, this will mark a pretty significant moment in their business journey for other reasons.

Reveal to friends that Carole, 68, and Michael, 73, plan to leave the company.

The pair have decided that the time is finally right to retire – and they hope to sell the company in the coming weeks to investors who will carry on the brand.

They own just over half of the company, with the rest owned by two investors. For this they have appointed strategic advisors at the company Interpath. Last week, a Party Pieces spokesperson commented on the news of Interpath’s involvement: “We are working with our advisors to secure additional investment that will help support the company as we move into the next phase of our growth plan.”

In reality, the “next stage” of the growth plan is for the couple to be ready to elope, to better enjoy their six grandchildren.

A friend says, “Carole and Mike are ready to retire, and instead of closing shop, they’re looking at the options to see if anyone wants to buy the company.

“Carole has put her heart and soul into Party Pieces and loves the job, but she’s 68 and works there full time almost every day. It’s too much of a commitment – she wants more time for family, gardening and travelling.’

I’m told there wasn’t one particular incentive that led to her decision, but instead the issue of Party Pieces and its future has been a talking point in the family for some time, and she’s gradually realized that now is the time to continue.

The friend says, “It’s taken her a while to come to terms with the fact that she’s ready to step away and enjoy her time more.” There are many grandchildren now and she loves being a grandmother.”

Carole has George, nine, Charlotte, seven, and Louis, four, through daughter Kate and Prince William. Late last year, the Cambridges moved into Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor estate, much closer to the Middleton family’s home in Berkshire.

This has made it easier for Carole, who was already an involved grandmother, to become even more indispensable to Kate. And let’s not forget that, after the Queen’s passing last September, Kate and William have never been so busy with official duties.

There are also three other grandchildren through daughter Pippa and her banker husband, James Matthews – Arthur, four, Grace, two, and baby Rose. That young family recently moved to the same Berkshire village that Carole and Michael have called home for decades.

Son James and his wife, Alizee, are also from the area – meaning there’s a lot to keeping her in Bucklebury in the stunning Grade II listed country house they bought for £4.5 million, rather than the company’s offices which are located on a farm in nearby Ashampstead.

And beyond that appeal, there’s no question that it’s been challenging to run a party supply company that’s been piloted first through a pandemic and then through a cost-of-living crisis.

Indeed, in January of this year, it was reported that Carole had dealt personally and directly with suppliers and asked for an extended period of time to pay for the goods received by the company. A source said: ‘Carole has explained that it has been a terrible Christmas, made worse by the postal strikes. She has emphasized that she would like to continue doing business with them [the suppliers]but wants terms that allow Party Pieces for 90 days instead of the usual 30 days.”

But the contraction is not a one-off. Last October, the accounts showed a loss of £285,506 in 2021, bringing the company’s total deficit to £1.35m. It was explained that this was due to the launch of a wholesale division and plans to open in the US, across Europe and in the Middle East – plus six months of lockdowns.

Carole said, “We operate in a very competitive market. We work hard to stay ahead of the trends and make sure we have original designs and ‘I wish I had thought of that’ products.”

The story of Party Pieces’ rise is also the story of the rise of the Middleton family – and all three children worked for the company at some point.

It was launched in 1987 when Carole was pregnant with son James and was looking for fun paper plates for Kate’s fifth birthday. Surprised by the lack of options, she decided she could do better.

Raised in a council flat and later a small terraced house in Southall, west London, Carole left school aged 16 and worked for the Prudential insurance company before taking a job as a ground crew for British Airways at Heathrow.

There she met Michael Middleton, a flight coordinator who is six years her senior. His family was wealthy and he was privately educated at Clifton College in Bristol.

They got married in June 1980. In the early years of their marriage, they lived in Jordan, where Michael worked, but Carole wasn’t sure she was suited to be an expat mom, so they returned to the UK in 1986 – and it was then that Carole ‘kitchen table company’ Party Pieces launched.

Initially, she was engaged in making party bags for the parents of her daughters’ school friends, but over time the business grew enough to take over a shed in their yard and eventually needed its own premises.

The most significant change was the rise of online shopping in the 1990s. Michael Middleton gave up his job to get involved when it took off. At the time of their daughter’s marriage to Prince William, Party Pieces was said to be worth – perhaps overexcited – £30 million.

The company certainly helped pay the school fees for all three children, who received an expensive education at Marlborough College.

There ‘the Mids’ became known for doing everything that crucial bit better than their contemporaries.

A fellow parent told Tatler magazine, “There was always something annoying about having your kids in school with the Middletons.

‘Every immaculate garment would have a nicely sewn-in name band, for example. It was unthinkable that they would resort to highlighters on labels like the rest of us.

“There were huge picnics on sports days, the smartest tennis rackets, things like that. It left the rest of us all feeling rather hopeless.”

The writer added, “At the end of the day, Carole played a blinder as a mother. Not only are all of her children unfairly handsome, they’re also famously charming. Always the first to write a thank you note, they dance the night away and are still the first to get up in the morning to clean up pillows and wash up.”

Naturally, when Kate caught Prince William’s eye at St. Andrews University and then spent years as his girlfriend before their wedding in 2011, the whole family came under a lot of scrutiny.

Carole’s funny brother, Gary, who lives in Ibiza’s Maison de Bang Bang, was interviewed. Carole was punished for chewing gum during Prince William’s fainting parade in Sandhurst. And, surprisingly, Kate was branded as ‘Waity Katie’.

But as any Marlborough mom could have told you, Carole and her family never set foot on the wrong foot, no matter the provocation. They were polite, they were patient, and they kept their mouths shut.

The Queen’s maxim – ‘Never complain, never explain’ – was adopted as their own.

And meanwhile, Carole quietly continued to run her party business with formidable drive and energy.

She gave a rare interview to this newspaper in 2021 and was asked why she didn’t feel the urge to retire from the party goods business, especially now that she was through the pandemic.

She said the thought hadn’t even occurred to her.

“They say if you’re doing a job you enjoy, you’re not working a day in your life — and I really feel that way, even when it’s really busy,” she said.

But in the end, with her daughter taking on an increasing public role, it’s finally time for her to focus on supporting her family.

Carole said in 2021, “All I can say about being a mom is how much I loved it and still do. Mike was a good hands-on father and we found a way to make business and family life work.’

But now it’s time for others to work to grow the business and for Carole – perhaps now the greatest grandmother in the country – to enjoy that role to the fullest.