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Lonely in Leeds: The Miserable Life of Chelsy Davy?
As a Leodensian/Loiner, I didn't exactly rejoice when i heard Chelsy Davy was coming to Leeds, mainly because i knew this kind of publicity would be the result.
Depression suffered at uni is not uncommon, but should we blame the city when things go wrong?
Depression suffered at uni is not uncommon, but should we blame the city when things go wrong?
Lonely in Leeds: The REAL story behind Chelsy Davy's miserable university life
By EWAN FLETCHER and JESSICA BARRETT
Last updated at 11:48am on 4th November 2007
Chelsy Davy: Glamorous but miserable
It has been lauded for its stylish shops and thriving business culture. Others hail it as the height of urban 'cool'.
Few northern towns have worked so hard or so successfully as Leeds to overturn a grey and uninspiring reputation.
So the city fathers must have been delighted when Chelsy Davy, girlfriend of Prince Harry, chose to go to university in Leeds ahead of other, smarter, destinations.
Like thousands of young people every year, Chelsy was drawn by the prospect of Britain's biggest student city – its 'edgy' bands, jam-packed clubs and an energetic nightlife calculated to appeal to the young Royals and their glamorous outriders.
Even Harry, 23, was said to be impressed by what he'd heard and is believed to have convinced her it was the place to go, although, as we shall see, he has been remarkably reluctant to make the trip north himself.
But if the city's reputation has been enhanced by Chelsy's choice, it seems the 22-year-old herself is feeling any- thing but positive.
Whatever she hoped to find in Leeds, the reality has been sadly different and already, less than two months since the start of her two-year course in politics and law, the city's thin veneer of glamour appears to be wearing thin.
Concerned friends say despite a determined effort to socialise and make friends, Chelsy can cut a solitary figure, is nervous for her safety and is anxious to return to London and Harry at every opportunity.
Harry and Chelsy out on the town in London last summer
Recent tears, plainly visible as she emerged from a fashionable London nightclub, were said to be the result of a blazing row with her soldier boyfriend and the strains of proximity replacing the intoxicating emotional reunions of the long-distance relationship they had enjoyed until September.
Whatever words were exchanged that night, however, it is becoming clear that there is another source of discomfort for the glamorous student – and that it lies in the grey skies, perma-drizzle and rubbish-strewn terraced streets of Leeds itself.
The local pub: Vodka Revolution bar is a Chelsy favourite
In short, there is much she hates about the place.
Perhaps it is little wonder: the city's student quarter is a world away from the sunny luxury of her home in southern Africa where, as the days darken here, summer is about to start.
It cannot help that her closest friends, who are in constant email contact, are now revelling in the sort of outdoor pursuits – swimming and riding – that Chelsy loves so much.
The best the figure-conscious Chelsy can hope for is a daily jog with friends.
"It has been difficult for her moving to Leeds, leaving all her friends, especially her brother Shaun, and starting all over again," concedes a friend.
"It was all quite emotional. I don't think she has many friends there and is keeping a lot to herself."
Her mother Beverley was with her at first, helping her settle in, buy a car and find a place to live.
But now she too has gone, leaving Chelsy to pine for Harry who – although in the same country – lives 200 miles away at Army barracks in Windsor.
And with the loneliness comes fresh uncertainty, with security an ever present concern. A lot of her very good friends have mentioned this.
Chelsy is concerned for her safety and this is having an effect on her.
"She has become quite worried in the past few months," said the friend.
"She likes to go into London as often as possible. I don't think she has spent much time in Leeds at all over the weekends. She has a lot of friends in London so goes there on any pretext."
Isolation is doubly hard for one as gregarious as Chelsy. For all her privileged upbringing in Zimbabwe and her aristocratic friends, Chelsy is said to be desperate to be an ordinary student.
This is why the she is living in a shabby street of red-brick terraces, sharing a house with two other girls.
Leeds has many fine Victorian properties but few of them are in the student quarter, near Headingly.
Part of a dilapidated terrace, Chelsy's shared home is one of several set back behind a row of gardens that must be among the scruffiest in Britain.
They are strewn with rubbish, including a number of old mattresses.
The living-room walls of these houses are typically covered in posters of rock bands. A penis, 3ft high, has been drawn on a mirror in shaving foam in one. In another, the doorstep is filled with a large blackboard bearing the single word 'Party'.
"This area is where all the students tend to congregate and Chelsy wanted to make sure she was able to fit in," said one of her fellow students.
"She didn't want to be in a posh part of town, where she would be cutting herself off from other students."
That said, she has certain standards and does not, for example, stoop to the nearest pub, a dilapidated establishment.
North-south divide: Harry's girlfriend is doing all the travelling in the relationship
Instead, she and her friends are regulars at the Clock Cafe, a retro bar that is filled with unusual and traditional timepieces.
Determined to keep a low profile, she dresses down in boots and jeans. Even so, she is a figure of great interest in the city, especially to its young men and women.
"It's funny," said a fellow student. "All the girls who see her talk about how she's not actually that pretty. But the boys definitely disagree."
Chelsy has always loved going out clubbing yet this is an aspect of Leeds that, surprisingly, has left her feeling disappointed.
As yet, she has found no true equivalent of her exclusive London haunts such as Mahiki and Boujis, where there are members-only VIP areas and, inside the club at least, a degree of privacy.
There, no one would bat an eyelid were she to order £100 cocktails.
Instead, she must make do with Thursday's Tequila Night in a city-centre club called the Warehouse, a favourite with the posher students.
"She comes here quite a lot, always for Tequila Night," said a bouncer at the club.
"There are these two girls who are her friends, maybe her flatmates, who help with the running of it and dress up in sexy costumes, going round the dance floor dishing out tequila shots."
Cafe Rouge, the faux-French bistro with a branch on every suburban High Street, is a regular choice, as is Vodka Revolutions near Millennium Square, part of a national chain of bars that specialise in flavoured shots of spirit.
It is an easy stroll from the university after her final, 5pm lecture of the day.
There, reclining in a leather armchair with other students or local businessmen and women, she can enjoy pitchers of cocktail or even, for £14, a long wooden 'stick' that holds glasses of ten differently flavoured vodka shots.
Glamorous it is not. But there is a degree of anonymity at Vodka Revolutions, which means that she can dance happily to the latest hits while videos play on a big screen alongside the dance floor.
There is more privacy in the student 'dinner-party' scene – more party than dinner.
"Chelsy has hosted a number of dinner parties at her place," said a friend.
"She gets a lot of invitations to them, too. At one, last month, guests drank so much vodka the food was pretty much abandoned."
Guests are all known and trusted and Chelsy is free to have fun, safe from prying camera-phones.
But while Chelsy is learning to adapt to the social scene, nothing could have prepared her for the shock of the weather in Leeds which, according to friends, is the biggest obstacle of all.
"She finds it unbearable," said one "The weather is really getting to her, especially since they are going into summer in southern Africa and everyone is on holiday – while she is studying."
An onlooker, who saw her walking into university through the pouring rain, said she seemed both miserable and ill-prepared. "She looked seriously unimpressed," he said.
"It's only a five or ten-minute walk but it was lashing down and she was carrying two big leather bags. They looked expensive and heavy, too. "She was only wearing a short green wool coat that certainly wasn't very waterproof, jeans and leather boots as normal. Luckily, she had a white and black chequered umbrella that kept most of the rain off."
Although she is many thousands of miles closer to Harry than before, the Prince is thought to have only once made the journey north. It is Chelsy who makes the effort to travel south at the weekends.
She has been to London at least three times in the past two weeks.
"There have already been several furious phone calls over who should visit who," said a friend.
"I don't think she gets to see Harry as much as she thought she would, although they do have a very good relationship."
Harry, or Haz as she calls him, has been an additional source of anxiety for Chelsy, at first especially.
"She was nervous after having a long-distance relationship of three years,' said a friend. "She wondered how it would translate without all the excitement. I think she felt maybe he would lose interest now that she is here permanently."
It will not have helped that Harry was one of those persuading Chelsy to choose Leeds over universities normally favoured by wealthy students, such as Bristol.
"Leeds was the final choice, because of Harry's influence mainly, but also it was the better place to do the degree and one of the girls she travelled with on her gap year went there," said another friend.
"She doesn't have any southern African friends at Leeds Uni, although next year a lot more friends from there are moving to the UK, which she is happy about."
And there are, of course, moments of light relief. One resident saw her with two pretty brunettes as they headed off to go shopping.
She said: "She was wearing great big sunglasses, paired with a white leather bag and white cardigan. Then she had what looked like all these strings of pearls but actually they were some sort of grey beads. She looked good and was happy and laughing. Her friends both also had ethnic jewellery on."
Her course appears to be going well, too. Chelsy is said to be gifted academically and is comfortable with the extra demands of a postgraduate degree, even if the disorderly common room of the law faculty, with grubby purple sofas, recycling bins and threadbare carpet, does not look like the sort of place where a potential future princess would be happiest.
"All in all, I don't think Leeds has turned out the way she expected at all and she is quite homesick," said a friend.
"She will be in Kenya over New Year. She's really looking forward to the Christmas holiday.
"But she's going to stick it out. She's not a quitter."
By EWAN FLETCHER and JESSICA BARRETT
Last updated at 11:48am on 4th November 2007
Chelsy Davy: Glamorous but miserable
It has been lauded for its stylish shops and thriving business culture. Others hail it as the height of urban 'cool'.
Few northern towns have worked so hard or so successfully as Leeds to overturn a grey and uninspiring reputation.
So the city fathers must have been delighted when Chelsy Davy, girlfriend of Prince Harry, chose to go to university in Leeds ahead of other, smarter, destinations.
Like thousands of young people every year, Chelsy was drawn by the prospect of Britain's biggest student city – its 'edgy' bands, jam-packed clubs and an energetic nightlife calculated to appeal to the young Royals and their glamorous outriders.
Even Harry, 23, was said to be impressed by what he'd heard and is believed to have convinced her it was the place to go, although, as we shall see, he has been remarkably reluctant to make the trip north himself.
But if the city's reputation has been enhanced by Chelsy's choice, it seems the 22-year-old herself is feeling any- thing but positive.
Whatever she hoped to find in Leeds, the reality has been sadly different and already, less than two months since the start of her two-year course in politics and law, the city's thin veneer of glamour appears to be wearing thin.
Concerned friends say despite a determined effort to socialise and make friends, Chelsy can cut a solitary figure, is nervous for her safety and is anxious to return to London and Harry at every opportunity.
Harry and Chelsy out on the town in London last summer
Recent tears, plainly visible as she emerged from a fashionable London nightclub, were said to be the result of a blazing row with her soldier boyfriend and the strains of proximity replacing the intoxicating emotional reunions of the long-distance relationship they had enjoyed until September.
Whatever words were exchanged that night, however, it is becoming clear that there is another source of discomfort for the glamorous student – and that it lies in the grey skies, perma-drizzle and rubbish-strewn terraced streets of Leeds itself.
The local pub: Vodka Revolution bar is a Chelsy favourite
In short, there is much she hates about the place.
Perhaps it is little wonder: the city's student quarter is a world away from the sunny luxury of her home in southern Africa where, as the days darken here, summer is about to start.
It cannot help that her closest friends, who are in constant email contact, are now revelling in the sort of outdoor pursuits – swimming and riding – that Chelsy loves so much.
The best the figure-conscious Chelsy can hope for is a daily jog with friends.
"It has been difficult for her moving to Leeds, leaving all her friends, especially her brother Shaun, and starting all over again," concedes a friend.
"It was all quite emotional. I don't think she has many friends there and is keeping a lot to herself."
Her mother Beverley was with her at first, helping her settle in, buy a car and find a place to live.
But now she too has gone, leaving Chelsy to pine for Harry who – although in the same country – lives 200 miles away at Army barracks in Windsor.
And with the loneliness comes fresh uncertainty, with security an ever present concern. A lot of her very good friends have mentioned this.
Chelsy is concerned for her safety and this is having an effect on her.
"She has become quite worried in the past few months," said the friend.
"She likes to go into London as often as possible. I don't think she has spent much time in Leeds at all over the weekends. She has a lot of friends in London so goes there on any pretext."
Isolation is doubly hard for one as gregarious as Chelsy. For all her privileged upbringing in Zimbabwe and her aristocratic friends, Chelsy is said to be desperate to be an ordinary student.
This is why the she is living in a shabby street of red-brick terraces, sharing a house with two other girls.
Leeds has many fine Victorian properties but few of them are in the student quarter, near Headingly.
Part of a dilapidated terrace, Chelsy's shared home is one of several set back behind a row of gardens that must be among the scruffiest in Britain.
They are strewn with rubbish, including a number of old mattresses.
The living-room walls of these houses are typically covered in posters of rock bands. A penis, 3ft high, has been drawn on a mirror in shaving foam in one. In another, the doorstep is filled with a large blackboard bearing the single word 'Party'.
"This area is where all the students tend to congregate and Chelsy wanted to make sure she was able to fit in," said one of her fellow students.
"She didn't want to be in a posh part of town, where she would be cutting herself off from other students."
That said, she has certain standards and does not, for example, stoop to the nearest pub, a dilapidated establishment.
North-south divide: Harry's girlfriend is doing all the travelling in the relationship
Instead, she and her friends are regulars at the Clock Cafe, a retro bar that is filled with unusual and traditional timepieces.
Determined to keep a low profile, she dresses down in boots and jeans. Even so, she is a figure of great interest in the city, especially to its young men and women.
"It's funny," said a fellow student. "All the girls who see her talk about how she's not actually that pretty. But the boys definitely disagree."
Chelsy has always loved going out clubbing yet this is an aspect of Leeds that, surprisingly, has left her feeling disappointed.
As yet, she has found no true equivalent of her exclusive London haunts such as Mahiki and Boujis, where there are members-only VIP areas and, inside the club at least, a degree of privacy.
There, no one would bat an eyelid were she to order £100 cocktails.
Instead, she must make do with Thursday's Tequila Night in a city-centre club called the Warehouse, a favourite with the posher students.
"She comes here quite a lot, always for Tequila Night," said a bouncer at the club.
"There are these two girls who are her friends, maybe her flatmates, who help with the running of it and dress up in sexy costumes, going round the dance floor dishing out tequila shots."
Cafe Rouge, the faux-French bistro with a branch on every suburban High Street, is a regular choice, as is Vodka Revolutions near Millennium Square, part of a national chain of bars that specialise in flavoured shots of spirit.
It is an easy stroll from the university after her final, 5pm lecture of the day.
There, reclining in a leather armchair with other students or local businessmen and women, she can enjoy pitchers of cocktail or even, for £14, a long wooden 'stick' that holds glasses of ten differently flavoured vodka shots.
Glamorous it is not. But there is a degree of anonymity at Vodka Revolutions, which means that she can dance happily to the latest hits while videos play on a big screen alongside the dance floor.
There is more privacy in the student 'dinner-party' scene – more party than dinner.
"Chelsy has hosted a number of dinner parties at her place," said a friend.
"She gets a lot of invitations to them, too. At one, last month, guests drank so much vodka the food was pretty much abandoned."
Guests are all known and trusted and Chelsy is free to have fun, safe from prying camera-phones.
But while Chelsy is learning to adapt to the social scene, nothing could have prepared her for the shock of the weather in Leeds which, according to friends, is the biggest obstacle of all.
"She finds it unbearable," said one "The weather is really getting to her, especially since they are going into summer in southern Africa and everyone is on holiday – while she is studying."
An onlooker, who saw her walking into university through the pouring rain, said she seemed both miserable and ill-prepared. "She looked seriously unimpressed," he said.
"It's only a five or ten-minute walk but it was lashing down and she was carrying two big leather bags. They looked expensive and heavy, too. "She was only wearing a short green wool coat that certainly wasn't very waterproof, jeans and leather boots as normal. Luckily, she had a white and black chequered umbrella that kept most of the rain off."
Although she is many thousands of miles closer to Harry than before, the Prince is thought to have only once made the journey north. It is Chelsy who makes the effort to travel south at the weekends.
She has been to London at least three times in the past two weeks.
"There have already been several furious phone calls over who should visit who," said a friend.
"I don't think she gets to see Harry as much as she thought she would, although they do have a very good relationship."
Harry, or Haz as she calls him, has been an additional source of anxiety for Chelsy, at first especially.
"She was nervous after having a long-distance relationship of three years,' said a friend. "She wondered how it would translate without all the excitement. I think she felt maybe he would lose interest now that she is here permanently."
It will not have helped that Harry was one of those persuading Chelsy to choose Leeds over universities normally favoured by wealthy students, such as Bristol.
"Leeds was the final choice, because of Harry's influence mainly, but also it was the better place to do the degree and one of the girls she travelled with on her gap year went there," said another friend.
"She doesn't have any southern African friends at Leeds Uni, although next year a lot more friends from there are moving to the UK, which she is happy about."
And there are, of course, moments of light relief. One resident saw her with two pretty brunettes as they headed off to go shopping.
She said: "She was wearing great big sunglasses, paired with a white leather bag and white cardigan. Then she had what looked like all these strings of pearls but actually they were some sort of grey beads. She looked good and was happy and laughing. Her friends both also had ethnic jewellery on."
Her course appears to be going well, too. Chelsy is said to be gifted academically and is comfortable with the extra demands of a postgraduate degree, even if the disorderly common room of the law faculty, with grubby purple sofas, recycling bins and threadbare carpet, does not look like the sort of place where a potential future princess would be happiest.
"All in all, I don't think Leeds has turned out the way she expected at all and she is quite homesick," said a friend.
"She will be in Kenya over New Year. She's really looking forward to the Christmas holiday.
"But she's going to stick it out. She's not a quitter."
Scroll to see replies
Reply 1
Why am I strongly reminded of Rita Skeeter...?
Reply 3
This is ridiculous. The Leeds Student newspaper is banned from writing about her; whoever wrote that trash should have been as well. Nobody ****ing cares.
Reply 4
I've felt like that too... she can come be miserable with me and confide about boyfriends ha. But it all seriousness I think she should just be left alone to get on with it, because she is at the minute a normal person.. she isn't a princess yet.. and I bet all she wants to do is get on with her degree and not have people stalking her, describing what she is wearing in the rain to a tabloid paper.
aliclare
But it all seriousness I think she should just be left alone to get on with it, because she is at the minute a normal person.
Ha! With her daddy's millions? I don't think so.
That said, I respect her for sharing a house in Hyde Park like everyone else rather than choosing to stay in a city centre apartment. There's nothing in that article to substantiate the claim that she's unhappy - it's all made-up tabloid journalism.
Reply 6
Gissing
Ha! With her daddy's millions? I don't think so.
That said, I respect her for sharing a house in Hyde Park like everyone else rather than choosing to stay in a city centre apartment. There's nothing in that article to substantiate the claim that she's unhappy - it's all made-up tabloid journalism.
That said, I respect her for sharing a house in Hyde Park like everyone else rather than choosing to stay in a city centre apartment. There's nothing in that article to substantiate the claim that she's unhappy - it's all made-up tabloid journalism.
Hahaha that is an awfully written article for one thing, Leeds isn't as covered with rubbish as London is for another thing, and everyone gets homesick. What poo. I haven't even seen her. Lol.
xx
Reply 8
That said, she has certain standards and does not, for example, stoop to the nearest pub, a dilapidated establishment.
Not true! I know someone who spoke to her and she said she always goes to the Hyde Park, and I myself saw her sitting outside a couple of weeks ago.
This whole article is clearly completely made up. What newspaper/magazine was it in?
Reply 10
She doesnt look miserable to me...well except in lectures, but everyone looks like that in lectures lol.
Reply 11
Poor girl.
Didnt she get into any of the better universities ?
Why Leeds
for heaven's sake ?
What was the girl thinking ?
Didnt she get into any of the better universities ?
Why Leeds
for heaven's sake ?What was the girl thinking ?
Reply 12
fscksleep
Poor girl.
Didnt she get into any of the better universities ?
Why Leeds for heaven's sake ?
What was the girl thinking ?
Didnt she get into any of the better universities ?
Why Leeds
for heaven's sake ?What was the girl thinking ?
Not a good thing to say in a Leeds forum!
Reply 13
Well it was on the front pages today that she's leaving us, ah well.
Reply 14
Papers tell lies...don't believe everything you read
Reply 16
Leeds is great, this girl is a mard and should bog off back to Africa
Reply 17
I thought she had quit her course now after her BF didn't come top Leeds for her Bday? No?
Reply 18
The metro said they 'had a row' and that now she's forgiven him. And that she wasn't really mad at him in the first place. Hahaha, love the rubbish early in the morning in my picked-up-from-the-seat tabloid.
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