Posh's pampered prince

His cheeky grin is as instantly recognisable as his mother's famous pout. He already has a sense of style to rival that of his talented father. And as he prepares to celebrate his fifth birthday on March 4, it would seem to observers that there can hardly be a more privileged child on the planet than Master Brooklyn Beckham.

Last Wednesday, he was given a £10,000 party in a giant white marquee - complete with dance floor - erected on the lawn of 'Beckingham Palace' in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. There was a disco, a magic show and entertainers who captivated his select group of friends.

It was a fun-filled event to remember, but something of an exception in the little boy's life, one spent in a cocoon of security that sees him perpetually shadowed by a team of minders for fear of kidnap.

It is the reason he doesn't attend school regularly - in either England or Spain - and why his education is now largely in the hands of a governess installed at his parents' £2.5million mansion.

Brooklyn is frequently separated from his father David - whom he adores and who dotes upon him - for weeks at a time because of the demands of the 28-year-old midfielder's Spanish masters, Real Madrid.

He also sees his mother, Victoria, less often than perhaps he would like to, as she continues her attempts to revive her pop career. Indeed, Brooklyn and his younger brother Romeo are most usually in the company of their grandparents, aunts and cousins.

So was it guilt rather than a characteristic appetite for excess that saw Posh and Becks splashing out on the birthday celebrations for their first-born son?

Ironically, he could not even have his party on his birthday. It had to be held eight days early so that his father could make it.

And that fact has everything to do with the fierce parental power struggle that is going on in which Victoria, according to some, is using her sons to try to persuade David to resume his footballing career in Britain - more of which later.

As the world knows, Brooklyn's parents no longer spend as much time as they once did together. While David is living something of a bachelor life in Madrid, Victoria is in London or New York.

The fact that Brooklyn's birthday party was held in England and not in Spain is particularly significant - the firmest possible sign that the family is now irrevocably based in Hertfordshire and not Madrid, as they and their PR team would have us believe.

All this despite Beckham's - and his wife's - insistence in the wake of his £25million transfer to Real Madrid last summer that the family would 'always be together in Spain'.

One sure indication of this change of heart is the fact that Brooklyn has never enrolled at the £1,100-a-term English-speaking Runnymede College, not far from the Beckhams' £4.5million rented mansion, La Morelja, despite their repeated assertion that he would.

VICTORIA defended this decision recently by saying: 'I couldn't send him somewhere where he wouldn't fit in. People recognise him, and I want him to go to a small school where he isn't going to feel he's Brooklyn Beckham.'

It is hard to see how two minders sitting outside a classroom in Hertfordshire are going to help make the boy feel ordinary. But then discretion has never been the Beckhams' choice.

Similarly, his mother insisted last year that she wanted to 'be the first one who sees him when he comes out of school and the one to put him to bed at night', but went on to admit 'this is not always going to be possible'. The truth is that it hasn't been.

Perhaps predictably, she arrived at last week's party straight from a five-hour session at her hairdresser's where she had been given 16in hair extensions and highlights at a cost of £1,300.

In reality, Brooklyn and Romeo's day-to-day care often lies in the hands of Posh's mother, Jackie, and her younger sister, Louise, and

more recently a nanny/governess. In the past, David and Posh have steadfastly refused to countenance the use of nannies to look after their sons, maintaining that the boys' grandparents are 'exactly what the boys need, nothing else'.

But that has altered in the wake of David's move to Spain and Victoria's reluctance to settle there.

Of course, many other working couples aren't able to spend as much time with their children as they might like, but for Brooklyn and Romeo there is the additional problem of the unrelenting media spotlight on them.

How many other sons, for example, have their names tattooed on the back of one of the world's most famous footballers? A tattoo that is regularly on display at international football stadia.

And whenever the Beckhams do get to spend time as a family, the paparazzi are not far behind, whether it is a few hours on the beach at Fuengirola last weekend, or a brief skiing trip in the Alps a few weeks earlier.

Even if they do manage to evade the cameras, there is the constant presence of the 'minders' that marks the boys out.

Given that the first kidnap threat was made when Brooklyn was four months old, it is not surprising that it provoked a dramatic and lasting reaction in the Beckhams. It is certainly a fear that still haunts David Beckham, which is why he chose to rent such a secluded and easily protected house in the Spanish capital.

The fact that his children rarely stay there only contrives to make this week's birthday party all the more poignant for him.

Some friends of the family insist it is part of Victoria's notsosubtle plan to persuade her husband to return to this country.

POSH'S closest friends maintain that her ambition is for her husband to return from Spain this summer to play for Chelsea, now bankrolled by billionaire Roman Abramovich.

'Posh was desperate to get David away from Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United,' says one old friend. 'Real Madrid was fine, but it was only a stop-gap in her mind. She'd like him to be at Chelsea by this summer.'

'Brooklyn and Romeo are being used as a way of pulling David back to Britain,' says another former friend in Spain. 'And it's driving him wild because he enjoys playing in Spain so much.'

It is the reason behind his sometimes angry, late-night telephone calls to his wife, in which he begs her to bring the children to Spain, and part of the explanation of why he has increasingly taken refuge in the friendship of his unmarried Real Madrid colleagues.

It is because of the late nights out in the Spanish capital that rumours persistently sweep the city about Beckham's friendships with various young women. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that some of the ensuing gossip will come to have its effect on Brooklyn.

Now that the five-yearold is on the brink of reading, for example - as well as coming into contact with at least a handful of other boys of his own age - there can be little doubt that the speculation that perpetually surrounds his parents will reach his ears.

the moment, we should be thankful he is too young to understand the ridiculous rumours about his father and the pneumatic Jordan - generated by Jordan to hype her forthcoming memoirs. Or the tittletattle about his mother's closeness to rap producer Damon Dash.

Do Posh and Becks really understand the pressure that their fame and lifestyle will place on their eldest son? Victoria has insisted that 'we want to keep Brooklyn's anonymity as much as possible'.

That ambition is hardly helped by her taking him to Madrid's most exclusive shops when she is in the city - where she knows the paparazzi will be waiting - or dressing him in an eye-catching T-shirt that bears the legend 'Weapon of Mass Destruction'.

But then that is only further evidence of the schizophrenic attitude to celebrity Victoria frequently demonstrates - a desperate need to be noticed at one moment, but to be anonymous the next.

It is an impossible dream - and it was from the moment Posh and Becks embraced the firestorm of celebrity that has generated a £50million fortune for them. The sad truth is that it is Brooklyn and Romeo who may ultimately pay the price.