Kate Middleton joked that she would buy a Spider-Man-man costume for her husband Prince William during a phone call with a martial arts teacher.
The Duchess of Cambridge, 39, spent time chatting with Jason Baird and praised an “amazingly captured” image of him dressed as Spider-Man during lockdown.
The image shows Mr Baird in mid-air in a front garden as children look on from inside a house, and is among 100 photographs chosen for Kate’s Hold Still exhibition and book, which encouraged the public to document life during the pandemic.
Mr Baird, who runs Jason Baird’s Black Belt Academy in Stockport, Greater Mancester, and his friend Andrew Baldock, became known as the “Stockport Spider-Men”, as they entertained children and family alike by dressing up as the character on their walks.
Speaking on the phone to Mr Baird, the duchess said: “Thank you for sending in your photograph because there are some really emotive and really sad images and stories that we had.
“But this brought, you know, particularly to the judging panel, it was such a wonderful positive image of community spirit.
“It was amazingly captured.
“And I hadn’t appreciated at the time that you are a martial arts teacher so that gives it a lot of context as well.”
Mr Baird, a father-of-two, said when he and a friend heard people were only allowed out for an hour a day they wanted to “try and cheer the kids up”.
He told Kate: “It was more a case of trying to bring a few smiles and stuff.”
Mr Baird said children in the area were dressing up as Spider-Man and had signs in their windows saying “Spider-Man stop outside my house”.
Kate, a keen amateur photographer, said this was “very cool”, and joked that she might have to get the Duke of Cambridge the Spider-Man costume.
“I’ll see if it takes on the trend here at Kensington Palace,” she said.
“Unfortunately I’m not so sure if he’s going to get the air clearance that you’ve got.”
Kate said Mr Baird has showed “huge dedication” to his community.
A recording of last autumn's phone call was released on Monday on the Cambridges' YouTube channel, the latest in a series of conversations to be released in recent weeks as part of the Hold Still initiative.
Members of the public were asked to submit images which were captured during Covid lockdown.
Kate and five judges selected their favourite photos from more than 31,000 submissions, whittling the list down to the top 100.
William and Kate last week concluded a royal tour of Scotland.
During the trip, the duchess kept her promise to a little girl who wanted to meet a princess dressed in pink, her favourite colour.
Kate proved true to her word when she invited little Mila Sneddon and her family to the Queen’s official Edinburgh home and wore an ME+EM outfit that matched the five-year-old’s dress.
The outgoing little girl, who is battling cancer, has captured the duchess’ heart – and when they met she told the youngster she wanted to give her a “big squeezy cuddle”.
Mila was featured in a picture from Kate’s Hold Still project and came to symbolise isolation during the pandemic after she was pictured kissing her home’s kitchen window as her father stood outside.
The little girl is undergoing chemotherapy for leukaemia and was photographed separated from her father during the first lockdown, after he had to go to work and could not risk bringing coronavirus into the family home in Falkirk.
