Princess Beatrice reveals she ‘burst into tears’ when she bumped into teacher who helped her with dyslexia at school after always feeling like she ‘didn’t fit in’

• The Duke and Duchess of York’s daughter, 35, spoke on a dyslexia podcast
• READ MORE:  Pregnant Princess Beatrice says it will be a ‘GIFT’ if her baby inherits her and husband’s dyslexia

Princess Beatrice has revealed she still ‘wells up’ when she thinks about the teachers who helped her with dyslexia at school and recently ‘burst into tears’ when seeing one such mentor at a recent event.

The royal mother-of-one, 35, who is an ambassador for Made by Dyslexia, appeared on an episode of the charity’s podcast where she discussed the power of enhancing AI by incporporating the thinking of a dyslexic brain.

During the episode she told her interviewer, Kate, about her own experience growing up with dyslexia when she was at school, and how it affected her learning in the earliest days of her education.

She said: ‘The early days of school really really stand out as to those moments where you just don’t fit in and you can’t figure out what it is about you, why don’t I fit?’

However with the guidance of some good teachers, and an ‘incredibly close’ family who helped her tackle tough times with ‘humour and joy’, she managed to overcome obstacles and learnt to embrace how the dyslexic brain thinks.

Princess Beatrice, 35, spoke on the Made by Dyslexia podcast about her experience as a young pupil growing up with the condition

Beatrice, who is married to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (who is also dyslexic) and is mother to two-year-old Sienna, recalled the frustration she felt at school when she was very young, before she realised she was dyslexic.

She said: ‘I remember trying to do extra lessons with teachers, and just sort of blankly staring up at [my teacher’s] face and she was like, ‘why are you looking at me? The words are not on my face’.

‘And I said, ‘well they’re not on the page either’!’ 

She also recalled, at the age of about six, being in a classroom with her peers and reading a Beatrix Potter tale, with each child reading out a few lines.

The Princess is now an ambassador for Made by Dyslexia and spoke at the World Dyslexia Assembly in Sweden last year 

As her turn approached, the Princess revealed she ‘didn’t know what [I was going to say]’. 

However, with time, and after moving down a year, Beatrice says she learnt to understand that her brain works differently from other people’s brains, and she gained support from both charities and some ‘amazing teachers’.

She named the teachers as Hillary Leopard and Wendy Miles, and said: ‘These are all characters that I well up when I think about because I wouldn’t be the person I am today if they hadn’t been there in my life.’

Beatrice added she saw Hillary Leopard at a charity event recently in which she ‘promptly burst into tears’ thinking about the meaning this teacher holds in her life.

She said: ‘We were standing in this crowd and I was crying and she was crying.

‘Now, being an advocate for dyslexic thinking, I think about her every day… how lucky I was… the hours she spent just being there and ploughing through.’

The royal said she has been inspired by Hillary’s ‘infectious energy’ to ‘pay it forward’.

In addition to some inspirational teachers, Beatrice revealed she had a strong support system at home from her ‘incredibly close family’ when she was a child.

‘I would say that all throughout our lives, we’ve been able to go through everything with humour and with joy. And my mum [Sarah Ferguson] really instilled that.

‘She’s been through so much in her life and I find her one of the most inspirational characters of joy and humour.’ 

Referring to the Duchess of York’s breast cancer battle, Beatrice praised her mother, who ‘still finds the time to be self-deprecating and joyful’.

Later in the episode, Beatrice and Kate joke that, due to Fergie’s creativity and talent for telling a compelling story, she should also be tested for dyslexia.

‘She’s a creative soul,’ the Princess said, before praising her mother’s ‘incredible emotional intelligence.’

When she was pregnant with her daughter Sienna Mapelli Mozzi, Princess Beatrice spoke movingly about dyslexia and said if her daughter inherited it, she would consider it a ‘gift’.

Speaking to Hello! Magazine, Beatrice said: ‘I think that having dyslexia and reflecting on where I am right now in my career path, and also as an older person looking back, it definitely has allowed me to look at things in a new way and come up with solutions.’

Her words echoed the title of Ron Davis’ 1994 book The Gift of Dyslexia, which became an immediate best-seller and became a bible for people with dyslexia and parents of children with dyslexia.

The Duke and Duchess of York’s daughter said that ‘if any child, any bonus son, or future babies that are on their way, are lucky enough to be diagnosed with dyslexia, I feel incredibly grateful to have tools such as the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity [that she’s patron of] to be able to tap into, to give them that extra support.’ 

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