Alison Hammond gets royal approval

Opening today’s episode of This Morning, Alison Hammond updated co-host Dermot O’Leary and the viewers at home on her big day out in Birmingham yesterday – where she met the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Dermot explained that ‘the purpose of the [royal] visit was to celebrate Birmingham’s diverse culture and heritage and to meet leaders of creative industries’ before Alison recounted: “So I was with some film producers and writers, they were the crème de la crème of Birmingham, they were amazing. We were waiting and Kate takes one side of the room and then William takes the other side of the room and talks to them, so we were going to talk to Kate. So then Kate came over and straight away, made a beeline for me so I was like ‘yes, I’m in there!’. She was smiling, she looked amazing. She had a beautiful red dress on, it was absolutely lovely.”

Looking at a candid photo that had been taken of her and the Princess of Wales, Alison said: “I mean it looks like I’m just laughing randomly there but she’s talking to all of us and having a conversation, we were talking about cocktails. She was saying that she likes spicy cocktails, she doesn’t like the sweet cocktails or anything like that.” 

Dermot asked Alison if the Princess of Wales ‘likes Baileys, like you’, to which Alison responded: “We didn’t talk about Baileys, it was all about cocktails, so she likes a spicy cocktail. She likes spicy food… So I invited her over to my house, I said ‘next time you’re in Birmingham, come over to my house. I’ll cook for you’.” 

Dermot agreed: “To be fair, she’d get a good dinner at your house!” Alison then continued: “She’d get a lovely dinner, she was like ‘I’ll definitely come’ and I was like ‘really?!’. I was like ‘this is the best day ever’.” 

Discussing This Morning’s Coronation Street special on Friday 5th May to mark the Coronation, Alison revealed: “I told her about the fact we’re doing our Coronation Street party and she was like ‘this is amazing, this is amazing’.”

Alison also asked the Princess of Wales what she would be wearing to the Coronation and said: “Because I said to her ‘I feel like you’re going to wear blue’.” to which she responded: “There is a hint of blue!”. 

Describing the sequence of events yesterday, Alison said: “So [Kate] goes downstairs to play darts, because this pub has darts, and then the Kensington Palace people said ‘well you’re going to lead William downstairs into the darts’ and I was like ‘you want me to lead him down?!’, so I led him down the stairs, I’m holding his hand…”

Looking at a clip of them playing darts, she said: “This is us playing darts and basically, I led him downstairs and then on the way down the stairs, I remembered that I hadn’t done ‘Your Royal Highness’ or bowed, so then I bowed awkwardly on the stairs, holding his hand.” 

Joking, Dermot asked: “Did you turn to him and say ‘babs I forgot I haven’t bowed to you’?”  

Alison laughed and admitted: “No, I didn’t say babs. I was a bit more… I just turned round to him… I was holding his hand and I was like ‘I’ve forgotten to say ‘Your Royal Highness” and then he started giggling as we were going down the stairs. Then we played darts, someone had put ‘HRH’ and Will said ‘that’s you Alison!’… so I played as HRH.” 

Closing the chat, Alison said: “It was the best day, I feel so boosted and I’m so glad that Birmingham got that lift. I just love Birmingham!… So thank you [Prince and Princess of Wales] for coming and guys, when you’re ready, just come over to the house, the food will be ready.” 

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1, ITVX and STV