My Autumn Kelly tabloid shame

Autumn Kelly, the colonial commoner, has aroused much curiosity since it was announced that she'd be marrying Peter Phillips, son of Princess Anne and 11th in line to the throne. What's this 33-year-old Montrealer like? Should the world be excited by the latest fairytale royal romance?

Well, I'm just the man to ask. I was hired by a ruthless British tabloid to sniff out and find the vital facts about this newest addition to the UK's genetically appointed rulers.

Now, Montreal isn't a big tabloid hotspot. We have no real hardcore news tradition. On a particularly spicy day our newspapers will tell us of vandalism in the graveyard.

But when summoned to go to a whole other level, to dig up a story in the great British tabloid tradition, to find the truth about the blonde suburban Canadian who had stolen the heart of a dashing royal, well, I had to give it a go.

So I started hanging out in the tight-knit suburban wasteland to the west of Montreal where Autumn Kelly (left) lived her entire life.

Autumn attended a cute little school on a sleepy block before moving onto a larger, nondescript public high school. She was said to have worked at a restaurant named Savannah's. It turned out to be a rundown pub, the last remaining establishment in a shoddy strip mall goofily placed near a highway entrance.

I met one of the rare patrons, a middle-aged drinker who claimed that two of his sons had dated Kelly and had spoken to her recently. He promised to show me photos of Autumn Kelly in a bikini. Then he walked out of the bar.

My London tabloid connection castigated me, telling me that I should have offered him a reward immediately. Money? How much? Cash or cheque? It was all new to me.

I then went out to a mall and started randomly asking around. One out of 20 or so claimed to have some knowledge of the girl. She was very nice. They knew her family. They respected her privacy.

What do London tabloid journalists do? Go through garbage? There's a law against that in these parts. Stakeouts? Instead, I wrote up a flyer asking people to call if they had information. I delivered it door to door in her neighbourhood.

The next day I was denounced on the city's biggest English-language radio station. The two old ladies who hosted the programme had received one of my notes. They thought my request to be an outrageous intrusion.

I then got a list of Autumn's classmates and wrote to several dozen of them asking for photos, info, anything. Silence had never been stonier.

A local journalist called Casey McKinnon turned out to have been to school with Autumn. She proudly paraded her friendship with Mrs Phillips-to-be and then denounced my quest for knowledge, a position which seemed hypocritical given we were fellow journalists in the sacred quest for public enlightenment.

Everybody in the suburbs seemed to be circling the wagons in the name of their home girl's dignity. Then, out of the blue, I received my one and only firm tip. A lifelong classmate of Kelly's contacted me. Her assessment of Kelly ­ whom she had gone to school with for over a decade ­ was particularly negative.

Kelly, she told me, was a giggler, not a deep thinker, and tended to follow the crowd in moments of classroom bullying. When her two best friends won university soccer scholarships - and she scored no such triumph - Autumn was deflated.

And that was it. My determination to satisfy the world's legitimate curiosity of this 33-year-old ­ - three years older than her royal mate - ­ had at least been a little sated.

The tale of Autumn Kelly seemed about as typical as could be. She was born and raised in a sleepy suburban area, had a typical upbringing and met a well-off guy and moved to London. No big deal. In fact two of my own sisters had also married well in London.

My hours of cajoling, emailing and banging on doors had proved that hardcore tabloid journalism doesn't always get results in a town unfamiliar with the rhythm of intrusive journalism. ·