Not b***** likely! How straight-talking Princess 'Sourpuss' Anne found her road ... trends now
It’s hard to imagine now, but half a century ago the reputation of the late Queen’s only daughter had all but hit rock bottom, and she was unpopular with press and public alike.
Dismissed as arrogant and entitled, Princess Anne had nothing like the reputation for diligent hard work that makes her, today, one of the most popular figures not just in the Royal Family, but the country.
It is quite a turn-around in esteem. And it all started with an extraordinary kidnap attempt 50 years ago this month to bring it all about.
The lowest point in Anne's relationship with the public came in July 1970, one month before her 20th birthday.
The 1970 visit to the United States made jointly by Prince Charles and Princess Anne. A youthful Anne, right, told one journalist he was 'talking absolute tripe'. But her language could get much worse than that
Anne remains a gifted equestrian. But in her early days, she loathed the ever-present photographers - and made her feelings known. Here she is pictured at the Eridge Horse Trials in 1971
The aftermath of the kidnap attempt on the Mall 50 years ago this month. A lone gunman tried to abduct Princess Anne - but she resisted with the words 'not bloody likely'
Princess Anne visits police officer Michael Hills at St George's Hospital in London. He was shot in the stomach while intervening during the attempt to kidnap her
The Princess had accompanied her brother Charles on a two-day visit to Washington to meet President Richard Nixon at the White House.
Designed to launch the princess on the world stage instead it ended up as a PR disaster.
She told one journalist he was 'talking absolute tripe', and snapped, 'I don’t give interviews' to the rest of them.
To be fair the American press pack was far less deferential than the Fleet Street ones she grew up with, but the damage was done, and she was dubbed ‘Princess Sourpuss.’
Her brother tended to fare better as she acknowledged:
'Charles seems to be able to ignore the cameras. I can’t ever forget they are there,' she said in self-defence.
Unfortunately, she fared little better at home. She found the newly invented royal walkabouts, designed to bring royalty closer to the people, a difficult chore, allegedly telling one little boy he was 'a silly bugger'.
A noted equestrian, she also hated the ever-present photographers at horse trials. If they came to close for comfort she was famed for telling them to 'Naff off' or 'sod off' often adding a few other 'offs' for good measure.
For most of the 1970s she became the royal whipping boy for the press. Legendary Daily Mirror agony aunt Margery Proops once compared the royal siblings in an article headlined: ‘Love Him: Hate Her!’
As late as 1982 the same paper commented: ‘ A tradition of the Badminton Horse Trials is that during at least one of the three days Princess Anne will lose her temper.’
That same summer The Times gave a scathing account of another of her visits to the USA under the ominous headline: ‘Haughty Princess puts Americans in place.’
Gradually she turned this negativity on its head and her popularity increased in three phases. The first came fifty years ago this month when a lone crazed gunman tried to abduct Princess Anne in a bizarre kidnap attempt.
Just four months after their wedding at Westminster Abbey, Anne and her first husband Mark Phillips were returning to Buckingham Palace, along the Mall, following an engagement in the City.
Suddenly their Austin Princess limousine screeched to a halt when Ian Ball, a 26-year-old unemployed labourer, swerved his Ford Escort in front of the royal car. Ball shot four people including Anne’s chauffeur and her protection officer.
The shocking event not only led to increased security for the royals, but it also helped redefine Princess Anne’s public image.
When details of the Mall shooting emerged, Anne’s calmness in the face of danger, impressed her critics.
She recalled the events a decade later to chat show host Michael Parkinson. Ball “said I had to go with him. I said I didn’t want to. I was scrupulously polite.' (Although in fact no-nonsense Anne had said 'not bloody likely'.)
She remembered him shooting at the back window as the glass hit her on the head 'I thought that was a good start' and crouching on the car floor 'I literally put my feet over my head and did a backwards somersault onto the road'.
Rather than giving an ‘oh poor me’ account, the princess had Parky’s audience in stitches when she revealed that when the gunman grabbed her arm 'the back of my dress split from top to bottom,
