PRINCESS ANNE AT 70
Berkshire Life|August 2020
The Princess Royal, Her Majesty Princess Anne, reaches a personal landmark on 15 August when she will celebrate her 70th birthday. As the nation applauds her non-stop working for others, the Princess reflects on some of the happiest times of her life – at Windsor
Bernard Bale
PRINCESS ANNE AT 70

“I didn’t ask to be born a princess!” she once replied to an interviewer’s leading questions. It was partly a rebuke but it was also a telling statement from Anne. Even though she did not ask to be born a princess nobody could ever accuse her of shirking her responsibilities. She has been tagged ‘the working princess’ and even anti-royalists have to admit that Princess Anne lives up to that label.

Her Royal Highness is constantly busy, often attending around 600 engagements each year. Rather than just going through the motions of those engagements she takes a keen interest in people and who they are, where they come from, what they do, and what experiences they have had.

Very often her schedules fall behind time because she goes the extra mile in talking to people and adding to her own duties, such as an impromptu and informal speech when she is only supposed to be photographed unveiling something. And she genuinely enjoys the many gifts she receives during those official engagements.

The Princess Royal has never been boring. Her sense of humor is rarely far away and one of her favorite gifts is chocolates. She appreciates flowers and other presentations but her smile gets warmer when she receives chocolates and she invariably says: “These will never arrive home.” And she means it too.

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