It’s a sunny morning in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, when Princess Anne drives her blue Range Rover into a school playground. There is no driver, no Royal fanfare. Even before Covid-19 restricted most Royal visits to local tours, Anne, who is celebrating her 70th birthday on Saturday, preferred to drive herself to official engagements. In the world of Royal visits, the tens of thousands of children who walk the playground of Lydbrook Elementary School to applaud the willing woman coming out of the car in sunglasses, a cream jacket, blue pants, matching gloves and sensual shoes, form a hollow key greeting. It is far away from the popping flash balls and jubilant crowds that often greet the Queen as well as the younger Royals at glamorous events.
But this is the bread and butter of life as a member of the Royal Family; visit a primary school to give teachers a pat on the back for rewriting the curriculum to teach local history. She is also there to recognize her work with children on nature and wildlife and applaud her striving to continue lessons during the crisis in coronavirus.
The younger Royals garnish the headlines with their glamor and big campaigns, but Anne, who usually hesitates with her brother, Prince Charles, for the title of busiest Royal in the annual number of official engagements, does a lot of the heavy lifting. abolition that connects the monarchy with ordinary people.
She typically completes more than 500 engagements annually. Last year, her total of 506 narrows was beaten by Charles’ 521.
Along with a career as a successful equestrian athlete and the first member of the Royal Family to participate in the Olympic Games (in 1976 in Montreal), she has taken over official duties since 1969.
A wild child in her day, when a young Royal who was often quarrelsome with the press – naff off was a polite applause of the real words she used on one occasion – she has long had a reputation for brusque and arrogant.
The Princess often fights with Charles for the title of busiest Royal (Image: Tim Graham)
Princess Anne and Prince Charles laugh in the grounds of Balmoral Castle (Image: Getty / Lisa Sheridan)
But the reality is that she is often charming. Today, she is chatting with the teachers and children and quick with an observation as an anecdote about her own life, and tells one child that she has a phone app that helps her identify wildflowers.
‘But that’s false,’ she smiles, before joining another group of students to view predators with a magnifying glass. There is no Harry and Meghan-like hugging or Princess Diana style that is on the same level as the kids, a technique Kate also uses often.
“She has a connection, but she will not be sluggish,” said hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray, who worked for the Princess Royal at Save the Children for 50 years, the charity of which she became patron in 2016 after she did as its chairman since 1970.
Earlier this summer, she was filmed reading a Thomas The Tank Engine story as part of a Save the Children fundraising campaign. The thought of it at the time appeared as incongruous as her supposed appearance on the sousaphone in the classic Comedy spoof of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band from 1967 The intro and the outro.
She has never been a ‘soppy’ princess (Image: Paul Popper)
But she did well, adjusting her sitting position, pulling a face at one point and telling children to look, ‘Hope you are comfortable sitting. ”
There are shadows of her father – family friends say she is the closest of all the Queen’s children to Prince Philip – because she regrets the modern trend of keeping children indoors.
In the outdoor play area of the school for students at a young age, she tells a story about going somewhere that had modern computers for children but nowhere to play outside.
“Kids, in an area like this, should do more in the fresh air,” she says. “You need this and they will learn better as a result.” After attending school, she goes to Bathurst Pool, a popular outdoor swimming pool that marks her hundredth birthday in the nearby town of Lydney.
“It’s very impressive, I must say,” she tells volunteers. ‘It looks very inviting. You are doing a fantastic job here. ”
“This is where we keep our 1920s filtration plant,” says one of her hosts, showing her off in an engine room. ‘And it still works. Great, ”she replies.
The Princess has always been a strong equestrian sport (Image: Tim Graham)
Mary Rose, a local potter, gives her a brightly painted egg bag as a memento. “Really surprised, thank you,” the princess tells her.
Both their visits have boosted morale and given their hosts something to remember for the rest of their lives, the goal of most routine Royal duties. Not that she ever seems too much what people think of her.
Anne spent much of her childhood on the farm at Windsor Castle and has always been an outdoor girl, country girl, even before moving to Gatcombe Park, the II-listed 500-acre mansion. t the Queen for her and Captain Mark bought Phillips, her first husband and father of their children, Peter and Zara, in 1973.
It remained her home after she divorced the Queen’s first child in 1992 and she now shares it with her second husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence. From time to time there are rumors, as with all members of the Royal Family, that all is not well, but friends say that their marriage is solid. The last time someone confidently claimed they were set to share it, they happened to be on a salty vacation together.
She and Tim regularly play host to their four grandchildren at Gatcombe Park, where Peter’s daughters, Savannah, nine, and Isla, eight, and Zara’s daughters, Mia, six, and two-year-old Lena, enjoy playing outside. as horse riding. She sometimes talks about her, but, unlike some Royals, it seems uncomfortable to say too much.
When Savannah was born in December 2010, staff members visited in vain what must have been a few weeks to tell the press the name of their first grandchild. It was only when a well-wisher outside a church asked her that she was persuaded to open the name.
The 300 charities of which the princess is patron feel the long-term effects of her support. Many benefactors with an HRH as patron on their letterheads will be happy to look forward to the next member of the Royal Family a year from now. But Anne has devoted much of her life to her charity and visits a few times each year.
Gordon Campbell Gray, 70, is Vice President of Save the Children and met Princess Anne as he ran charity projects in Bangladesh, Africa and Central America in his twenties.
He has long been impressed by her practical approach and acknowledges that after 50 years with Save the Children, she knew more about her than many of the younger staff and was able to teach some other Royals a lesson or two. “She’s not flashy and she’s not trying to get the kudus,” he says. “I think one or two in their category could learn from them.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair this year she appeared to be taking a sweep at younger Royals who for the most part devoted themselves to traditional ribbon cutting and a life of hundreds of visits a year in favor of short, straightforward campaigns on issues of the day.
Princess Anne on her wedding day when she married ex-husband Mark Philips (Image: Corbis Historical / Hulton Deutsch)
Describing herself as “the boring old fuddy-duddy at the back who said ‘don’t forget the basics'”, she warned the younger generation, including the Cambridges and Sussexes, not to reinvent the wheel.
Her traditionalist approach and quick wit go well with her benevolence. Mr Campbell Gray says her work is often not noticed, but she helps enlist donors
and raises millions for Save the Children – sometimes £ 700,000 in one night.
“At the end of the day, what can increase the money is what this is all about,” he says. ‘She can come to these events and there is no publicity or coverage of her.
She does so much that has never been picked up and other Royals might just have to wear a red dress and they are on the front page. I have known that they arrive at events where their security guard said they changed into the car. ‘
Within the royal household, Princess Anne has a reputation for always being well-informed, not afraid to show her displeasure when things go wrong, but is never one for histrionics, unlike Harry and Meghan, for example.
She writes her own speeches, keeps out of London and the backstory in “the Firm” as much as she can and always tries to return to Gatcombe Park in Minchinhampton when possible.
The Princess married Tim Lawrence in 1992 (picture) (Image: UK Press / Mark Cuthbert)
In her family, she has often been left out of the battle. “I always accepted the role of always at a young age,” she once said. “You start in life a whole lot to Charlie, at the end of the line.”
Her biographer, Brian Hoey, confirms her closeness to her father. “It’s a very exclusive society for mutual admiration,” he says. ‘Edward absolutely forgets her. She is the big sister to him. ”
And sources close to Charles reflect Hoey by saying he always respects his sister, even when they disagree on issues like climate change and genetically modified crops. “It’s a mutual, muted grace with a lot of respect on both sides,” he says.
At one point, the biographer thought that when Charles became king, Anne could act as his de facto consort after he said he would never marry again after Diana’s death. Things have been going on ever since and it is likely that he will ask her to continue for “the Firm” when he comes to the throne.
That will be a relief to Mr Campbell Gray. “Any suggestion that a younger person should take over at her age would be ridiculous,” he says. “She’s really replaceable because of the dedication.”
