After protests, William and Kate looked in their element as they were greeted by large crowds in the home of reggae

It’s one of those walkabout moments that people will write about for years, William and Kate being mobbed in Trench Town in Jamaica, the birthplace of reggae.

They were surrounded by crowds, booming music and a strong whiff of cannabis.

What must have been a nightmare for their security team, the couple looked in their element in the chaos of it all.

It showed that not everyone is against this royal visit as they started their tour of a country that is questioning its future relationship with the Royal Family.

Earlier there had been protests, demonstrating the strong feelings held by some about the horrors of slavery and the call for reparations from the UK.

We’re told the couple were aware of them, and you’d imagine that the fact Jamaica is seriously considering following Barbados in becoming a republic would be pretty high on their briefing notes.

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Their first big engagement around a football pitch in Trench Town had a different vibe from those demos, and in some ways, you’d expect that; you wouldn’t stand around to see the royal couple if you didn’t like them.

But what I found from talking to some of those who’d turned up was that the debate about becoming a republic is certainly not at the front of everyone’s mind; how they live and feed their families day to day is much more pressing.

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Most people were simply excited to have the couple there, others were just indifferent and had turned up to see the spectacle of it all.

For others, it was important to get close to the Jamaican sports stars who’d been invited like England footballer Raheem Sterling.

I asked him how important Jamaica’s relationship with the Royal Family was for him growing up, and what he thought about the current debate.

“I don’t want to go too much into that,” he said, adding, “I think, you know like with everything you have some people who might be a bit frustrated with things that happened in the past but I think on the whole there’s a lot of love for the Royal Family here”.

In some ways, he summed it up. It is nuanced, and a debate bound up in a number of different areas, the legacy of slavery, the right to compensation and is now the right time for Jamaica to cut ties with the Royal Family and go it alone?

It’s hard to know if any protestors tried to turn up in Trench Town, security was inevitably tight.

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And they may well face tougher crowds in the next couple of days. There are many who still want Prince William to apologise for the Royal Family’s role in slavery.

I understand he is likely to acknowledge the pain but stop short of an apology. We wait to find out if that is enough in anyway to satisfy this new audience on what is the couple’s first trip to Jamaica.

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