She will no doubt get many presents for her 70th birthday, but perhaps the most precious will be the words of her children Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, who have paid tribute to the Princess Royal’s remarkable balancing of motherhood with duty.
Talking about their mother in this week’s ITV documentary Anne: The Princess Royal at 70 , Zara, 39, describes how the Princess threw herself into family life as soon as her work was finished.
“She’d come home from engagements in exactly what she was wearing, make-up on; put her welly boots on, jacket on, do her chickens and get her eggs,” she says.
Now a mum herself to Mia, six, and two-year-old Lena, the equestrian appreciates that attitude. “When you’re working, you also want to go home and…