Reporting from Buckingham Palace

The "great Kate wait" may have been over at 4.24pm on Monday but the new parents kept their happy news to themselves for 4 hours before the Palace issued a press release, announcing that the Duchess of Cambridge "had been delivered of a son". It was a break with tradition. In the past, the first the public knew of a royal baby's gender was when the birth notice was placed in a gilded frame in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.

The notice did still go up much to the delight of thousands of people who had gathered at the palace gates to witness the historic moment. They hailed from around the world – Dubai, Mexico, Australia, Israel – and amid the jubilant celebrations queued patiently to capture a photograph of the birth notice largely with their iPhones – a sign possibly of things to come for this new royal heir.