Just like dad, Prince William is marrying his ‘nanny’

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London: They say men subconsciously look for women who remind them of their mothers, but Prince William seems to have found a woman who is a reflection of his nanny.

Both father Prince Charles and son have ended up marrying women who look remarkably like their childhood nannies, reports The Daily Mail.

Writer and portrait painter Suzi Malin says in her book ‘Love At First Sight’, that a fundamental human attraction called ‘primo copulism’ makes us fall in love with someone who reminds us of a person with whom we shared a significant bond in childhood.

For the Prince of Wales, it was Mabel Anderson — the daughter of an Essex policeman — who took up the post of royal nanny in 1949, and it was Tiggy Legge-Bourke who became a nanny to Williams in 1993.

In fact, she entered Prince William’s life during a very rough patch – when his parents were separating.

When William’s parents separated, Tiggy’s role became pivotal and she spent as much time with the young princes as Diana did.

Malin suggests that when, later in life, we meet a person with the same ‘look’ as someone who meant a great deal to us, it acts as a subconscious visual trigger for our emotions.

Tiggy Legge-Bourke and Middleton have uncanny similarities: shiny mane of long brown hair, a similar set of upper teeth, straight noses, peachy cheeks and the same-shaped chin.

It seems too much of a coincidence that William proposed to Kate when she was 28 — within a year of the age Tiggy Legge-Bourke was when she came to care for him.

Talking about similarities between Charles’ wife and his nanny, when he met Camilla Parker Bowles at a polo match in Windsor Great Park, she was 23 years old, exactly the same age that Mabel Anderson was when she looked after the young Prince.

Camilla and Mabel have features that are remarkably alike: their chins and jaw are similar, and they have other shared facial traits such as shallow eyelids, and mouths, which turn downward when they smile.

Malin says that ‘prima copulism provides only the initial spark which brings two people together’, but she thinks that where it occurs, the man will instinctively trust the woman because she will remind him of a love that goes back to childhood, ‘where trust and affection were first learned’.

In picture: Guilder Lyn Holmes examines a 'Loving Mug' made to mark the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Aynsley China in Stoke-on-Trent, England. The company which was established in 1775 by John Aynsley has been producing commemorative tableware to mark royal occasions since the late 19th century - AP