Samantha Cameron has confessed that she didn't particularly enjoy her time at No 10 Downing Street, the place she called home for six years while husband David was Prime Minister. Apart from having the opportunity to "meet some amazing people," the fashion designer said she didn't like some of the ceremonial aspects of her role – most notably, the waving. As a political spouse, Samantha was expected to wave while posing for photos – an act she found "bizarre".
"It's not like we are the royal family. I was terrible at it," she told The Times. "We had to stand next to the Obamas in Washington once and I tried to say, 'Can we not do the waving thing'? And it is going quite well and then of course Obama starts waving and Dave starts waving and so."
Samantha admitted that she hated the waving
After leaving No 10, Samantha launched her own fashion label, Cefinn. She recalled some of the wardrobe malfunctions she suffered, noting one time her dress ripped while she was on stage at a party conference. Samantha had to cover the tear with her pashmina, saying: "I sat there for an hour panicking."
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The working mum launched her fashion collection the year after David stepped down. The first and last letters of her brand, Cefinn, are the same as her surname Cameron, while the middle letters represent the initials of her four children – Elwen, Florence, Ivan and Nancy. Ivan, who suffered from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy, sadly passed away in 2009.
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Samantha admitted that at the time, the outside world became "meaningless". "Ive dying is such a massive thing that everything else is irrelevant. I think it changed Dave's politics," she told The Times in 2017. "It made him understanding, though he couldn't be too subjective. From the moment he is born, you are living in a situation that is quite surreal and difficult to deal with. It is intense every day, in and out of hospitals... in a way, that prepared me for Dave being Prime Minister, because I was used to living and operating in a way that's not normal." She continued: "Like anyone else in my situation, I just kept going. You have to deal with it, because you have no choice."