Flashback – March 2008

Prince William caused a stir among staff at a Shropshire cinema when he turned up to watch a blood ‘n’ guts action movie on the big screen.

At first staff at Cineworld in Shrewsbury, which was showing "Rambo," thought they were seeing an uncanny double of the prince.

That was until he handed over a card bearing his name.

Now you might say that somebody going to the cinema to watch a movie isn't an earth-shattering event, but there again, if you found yourself sitting next to an heir to the throne it would be a story you would tell again and again.

The prince's visit to the flicks in Shrewsbury came in March 2008, when he had just started training on helicopters at RAF Shawbury.

Spencer Owen, operations manager at the cinema in Old Potts Way, said at the time that William went almost unnoticed by customers on a quiet Tuesday night.

The prince was dressed casually and appeared relaxed. He was able to enjoy the Hollywood blockbuster, starring Sylvester Stallone, in relative peace with only four or five other people in the screening with him.

Mr Owen said: “It was an early evening show at about 7.30pm and he was with a couple of people.

“It was a staff member at the box office that recognised him. Then he handed over his card which had his name on.

“One of our other members of staff said, ‘We’ve got a very good lookalike of Prince William in the building’, and I said it wasn’t a lookalike, it was the real one.

“He wasn’t bothered at all and he didn’t rush anywhere. He was quite leisurely.”

The film saw Stallone reprising the role of Rambo for one last mission.

Mr Owen said Prince William’s visit was a real coup for the cinema and he was one of its most famous customers.

The trip to Cineworld was the second sighting of the prince in Shrewsbury in less than a week. On a Thursday evening he was seen enjoying a drink at the Armoury pub in Victoria Quay.

A few people who tried to sneak photographs on their mobile phones were stopped by plain clothes security staff. William was drinking pints of lager for about two hours.

The prince, second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, was on a four-month attachment to the RAF, which began in January 2008 and comprised flying training on fixed wing aircraft at RAF Cranwell and RAF Linton-on-Ouse, before moving to the final stage which was being taught how to fly the Squirrel helicopter at RAF Shawbury.

He was at the Shropshire base for four or five weeks, and returned there in January 2009 to begin a 12-month course in advanced helicopter flying training at the Defence Helicopter Flying School.

And who should join him at Shawbury in April that year but his brother Prince Harry. They were known in the service as "William Wales" and "Harry Wales."

Prince William successfully completed his course in December 2009. It was a significant step in his training to become a fully operational pilot with the RAF's Search and Rescue Force.

The flying aspects of the course for Flight Lieutenant Wales included around 80 hours of training on the Griffin HT1 helicopter.

Of course we shouldn't be surprised that royals take the opportunity to get out and about like "ordinary people," and no doubt they are often unnoticed.

Turn back the clock exactly 100 years to 1921 and the then Queen was spotted browsing in an antiques shop in Shrewsbury and was seen doing more shopping in the town a few years later.

In 1987 a young woman walking about in Ludlow wearing a long green mac, green wellies, and a khaki cloth hat – which was pulled well down – attracted the attention of a gaggle of curious shoppers who followed her, eager to get a better view.

For they were 100 per cent convinced that it was Princess Diana – Prince Williams' mother of course.

She was out with a young couple, and a man presumed to be her bodyguard. The little party moved to the Church Inn where the woman sat in the bar and had a quiet drink.

“If it wasn’t her, it was her double,” said one observer.

Zara Phillips danced the night away at Shrewsbury’s Park Lane nightspot in 2001, unrecognised by any of the other clubbers.

And that's only the informal "royal visits" that we know about.