Impressions of the Princess

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 14

Impressions of the Princess

By

GLEN HASZARD)

Never before have 1 felt as embarrassed about being a journalist as when Princess Anne confronted me with the question: ‘•Hello, what do you do?” Having read the occasional story about her disdain for reporters who pry into her personal affairs and photographers who take saucy pictures of her from behind nushes. J was reluctant to admit that I was one of them. My first thought was to «wade rhe question. 1 replied telling her how honoured ) felt to be approached by her. She continued to look at tne. awaiting a reply to her question. 1 replied, uneasily, 'hat I was a journalist, but that it was not in that capacity that I was aboard the Royal yacht Britannia to attend a Royal reception. I followed that with a calculated attempt to disown my craft.

1 "I suppose you must get i very annoyed with reporters?” I asked politely. What seemed to annoy her ’ most was that reporters set > up interviews and tried to > prise stories out of her on J her most sensitive points, instead of finding out facts. . She said that whenever she or her husband. Captain r Mark Phillips, tried to be r light-hearted, the reporters ’ tried to steer them back to a J more sensitive point. GREEN DRESS My stereotype of Princess i Anne gradually receded as [ she held forth. It was not I unlike a conversation be- ■ tween two students in a university cafeteria, except • that she’ was dressed in a . long green dress, and had • her golden hair tied back [ from her face, and J was j dressed in a dinner suit and , bow tie. 1 thought it was safe to ( ask her if she was going to ! Rangiora on Sunday for the horse show, since I already

t knew that she was. Unfort-, a unately for me, she did not! want to engage in converse.-1 rtion about horses. She t; wanted to escape from her j routine and enter the realm liof intellectual stimulation on ;, which she obviously thrived. i.| She was chatty, but in, ei complete control of the con-; ajversation. She had an, “’authoritative answer for; s everything from education to i women’s liberation, yet at no 1 time did she turn a deaf ear' to what I had to say. s ONE GLASS s She sipped one glass of t wine, and had nothing to do < - with the savouries and other: i oddments offered her from 1 11 time to time. i On the question of which i spouse should do the dishes, ci she came down on the side si of logic. It depended on the j situation, she said. There was nothing wrong > with boys playing Rugby, > she told a friend of mine » who became involved in the: lt did them

■ good to have a bit of a drubbing. Competition was a ■ good thing, bringing the best i out of a person, she said. Princess Anne wore only a i’hint of make-up—a slight, i'coating of powder on her Jvery human nose. CONVERSATION ENDS Like a good hostess, she '(broke off our conversation, ’politely at some suitable' ' stage, but with less apology 'Than normal, leaving me wondering what 1 had said to offend her. Perhaps it was because 1 ’ told her that she was more ’’informal than 1 thought she, 'iwould have been. 1 But after the sounding of , the “Retreat,” a ceremony i on the wharf beside the , Britannia, the Princess said: “We do have our formal occasions, too.” Thus ended my conversation wtih a very lively and intelligent Royal personage, not at all the prim and proper miss (now Mrs) that I had imagined.