A Florida Meals on Wheels driver reads about Prince William’s personalised plates and discovers her retirement village has been doing this for years
Tuesday, 20 October 2026. Gulfport, Florida. Waiting outside a gated community for the gate to remember me, 11.05am.
The Gate Does Not Remember Me
Tuesdays are Route Three, which goes through Gulfport, a town that is mostly retired people, artists and chickens who have been allowed to roam free for so long they behave like local councillors. My first stop is a gated community called Palm Haven Estates, where the gate has a camera that is supposed to recognise volunteer drivers. It has never once recognised me. I sit there every Tuesday holding twelve chicken pot pies and smiling at a lens like a contestant on a game show nobody is watching.
While I waited today I read the report on Prince William’s three personalised number plates, NOTYET, NOTHARRY and DISTASTEFUL, attached to an Aston Martin for waiting to be King, a Range Rover for avoiding his brother and a Bentley for disapproving of almost everything. I laughed so loudly the gate opened, I think out of alarm.
Florida Perfected Saying Things With Your Car
Here is something British people do not know about Florida. Florida is the global capital of saying things with your vehicle. Every car on Route Three has a personalised plate, a bumper sticker or a small fish symbol, and often all three. My clients have plates that read GOLFNUT, RETIRED, NOMOWORK and, in one case, WHYME, on a Buick belonging to a man who has never once explained it.
So when I read that palace officials hold a seven-month consultation before approving a registration, I thought of Mrs Esther Kowalski of Palm Haven, who chose the plate GRAMMY4 in about nine seconds at the DMV in 2019 and has regretted it ever since, because people assume she has won four Grammys. She has won none. She has four grandchildren, two of whom she does not like.
The Golf Cart Hierarchy
Inside Palm Haven, nobody uses a car. They use golf carts, and each golf cart has a name painted on the side, and each name tells you everything about the owner’s emotional condition, exactly like the Prince’s plates. There is a cart called Gerald, owned by a widow named Maureen, which is named after her late husband, which she drives with tremendous speed and no apparent regret. There is a cart called SECOND WIFE, owned by a man who is now on his third. There is a cart called PATIENCE, which is always parked outside the clubhouse because its owner has been waiting eleven years to be elected president of the bridge club.
That last one is NOTYET in all but name. If the Prince ever visits Florida, I would like to introduce him to the owner, a retired dentist from New Jersey named Harold, who has been next in line for the bridge presidency since 2015. The current president is ninety-four and plays every Thursday. Harold has started bringing her vitamins. He describes this as friendship. Everyone else describes it as succession planning.
A Poem For The Royal Garage
At a red light on Gulfport Boulevard I wrote a short poem, as I do, on the back of a route sheet.
One car for waiting, one car to flee, / one car for frowning at the sea. / In Florida we do it cheap: / a golf cart named for those we keep, / a plate that says what we cannot, / a horn, a fish, a parking spot.
I read it to Maureen when I dropped off her chicken pot pie. She said it was lovely and asked me to read it to Gerald. I did. To the golf cart. It is that sort of route.
DISTASTEFUL Has A Florida Cousin
The plate I enjoyed most in the report was DISTASTEFUL, on a Bentley the report says suits virtually any public engagement or newspaper headline. Palm Haven has its equivalent. It is not a car. It is a woman named Doris Feld, eighty-seven, who sits on her lanai in a visor and watches the street with an expression so disapproving that delivery drivers have been known to apologise to her for things they have not done. I have apologised to Doris for the weather, the traffic and once, inexplicably, for jazz.
Doris reads the British news because her late husband was from Sheffield. I told her about the number plates. She said that was ridiculous and wasteful and that the young man should be ashamed of himself. Then she asked if I could find out what colour the Bentley was. I said silver. She said she would have gone with navy. That is a Florida retiree’s highest form of approval: complete disgust, followed by a design note.
On The Diary
Older entries from my Florida life, back when I was just writing about the heat and the satire round-ups, live in the archive, like this October 2025 round-up of the most entertaining stories. My writing has changed since then. I used to write about the news. Now I write about the people who read me the news through a screen door.
Route Three Complete
Twelve pot pies delivered. One gate argued with. One golf cart serenaded. I drove home along the water with the windows down and thought about how every human being, royal or retired, wants the world to know how they feel without having to say it out loud. Some use a Bentley. Some use a golf cart called Gerald. I use poems on the back of route sheets. The world does not read any of them properly. But Maureen did, and Gerald did, and that will do.