One of Prince George’s godparents is none other than Julia Samuel, who was a close confidante of the late Princess Diana© Alamy Live News.

Like all mums and dads, Prince William and Princess Kate do their best to make their children’s birthdays something special. There is, however, one tradition in the family that William does not exactly relish.

in the past, Kate has provided glimpses into the birthday customs her family observes – including the fact that she burns the midnight oil baking birthday cakes for the young royals, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and little Prince Louis. Within these celebrations, it emerges there’s a particular duty that dad William performs – albeit without much eagerness.

One of Prince George’s godparents is none other than Julia Samuel, who was a close confidante of the late Princess Diana. She once divulged about a chaotic tradition that she has instilled within the Wales family.

She shared: “I do to George what [Diana] did to us, which is give impossible toys that are really noisy and take a lot of making.

“William then has to spend days putting them together. And then put all the machinery together, and it makes awful tooting noises and lights flashing and all of that.”

she further revealed. While poor William labours for several days assembling the tricky toys, according to her, the rest of the family derives great joy from his struggle – with “cheeky” George leading the pack.

Recounting the experience, she said that it “makes [her] laugh, and it makes George laugh.”

Julia opened up about a touching family tradition while chatting on the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, during a special 2020 episode commemorating what would have been Princess Diana’s 59th birthday. Tragically, Diana never met her grandchildren as she passed away after a car accident in Paris in August 1997, aged just 36.

Julia fondly described her godson as “amazing” and expressed that Diana would have been smitten with him too. “He’s funny and feisty and cheeky and God she [Diana] would have loved him so much,” she remarked.

“That is heartbreaking for all of them.”

Prince William has previously discussed the significance of keeping his mother’s memory alive for his children, ensuring they are familiar with their late grandmother. In the 2017 ITV documentary ‘Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy’, William shared, “So we’ve got more photos up round the house now of her and we talk about her a bit and stuff. And it’s hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her, so she cannot really provide that level of detail.”

“So I do, regularly, putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers, there were two grandmothers in their lives. And so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed.”

He later added some humour, saying, “She’d be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare! She’d love the children to bits, but… She’d come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing amount of scene, bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place and then leave.”

Further on he noted: “I want to make as much time and effort with Charlotte and George as I can because I realise that these early years particularly are crucial for children, and having seen what she did for us.”