Anne’s bodyguard shares his found, fruity memories of The Princess Royal as she turns 70
BODYGUARD Colin Tebbutt had been on duty for 36 hours straight when he walked down the aircraft steps ahead of the royal it was his job to protect.
But, stepping off the bottom rung, the sleep-deprived policeman tripped and fell, knocking himself out.
As he came to on the tarmac, with blood pouring down his face, Colin groggily wondered whether he had been the victim of an attack.
He opened his eyes to find Princess Anne kneeling beside him.
She leant down and, alluding to Pope John Paul II kissing the ground when he left a plane, whispered: “Who do you think you are, the Pope?”
Colin, the Princess’s protection officer for more than six years, says: “That incident sums her up perfectly.
“Just like her mother the Queen, Anne is totally unflappable and has a brilliant sense of humour.”
The detective was patched up in hospital and sent home to recuperate while the Princess continued with her tour to Swaziland in southern Africa.
For half a century Anne — who is 70 today — has been the Royal Family’s hardest worker.
The Princess Royal, who barely makes any headlines these days, travels thousands of miles a year without any fanfare visiting the charities, organisations and businesses that make Britain tick.
She is not just the Queen’s only daughter, but her closest friend.
Her biographer Brian Hoey, who has known Princess Anne for 50 years, says: “You never know which side of her you will see — haughty and regal one minute, casual and relaxed the next.”
To mark her 70th, the Princess has been promoted to General in the Army and Air Chief Marshal in the Royal Air Force.
And three new photos of her have been released, taken at her Gatcombe Park home in Gloucestershire by celebrated photographer John Swannell.
Here, in our own tribute to her, The Sun has uncovered untold stories about the hard-working royal.
Bodyguard Colin, who rose to be an inspector with the Met’s Royal Protection Group, also had duties with Princess Diana, Sarah Duchess of York, Prince Philip and the Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra. But he rates Princess Anne “the best I ever worked for”.
Colin was a sergeant in 1980 when he was sent to live with the Princess and her family at Gatcombe Park.
Former Olympic horse rider Anne — who is now married to retired Royal Navy officer Sir Tim Laurence — was then the wife of Captain Mark Phillips.
Their son Peter, who Anne decided would not have royal titles, was a toddler and Zara was born the following year.
Colin, now 83, recalls: “Princess Anne called me Colin, or ‘you over there, useless’.
“It wasn’t malicious but she once told me she is destined to live her life from cradle to grave with a policeman by her side.”
One of Colin’s first jobs was to accompany Princess Anne in her Reliant Scimitar sports car to David Nicholson’s racing yard at Condicote, Glos, where she rode out with National Hunt jockeys three mornings a week.
He recalls: “I got the Scimitar out and it roared up the drive to the house. It was 4.55am. Feeling very proud of myself, I got out and said, ‘Good morning your Royal Highness’. She totally ignored me.
“I got in the car. She is driving but still says nothing to me. We went down the drive at five miles an hour and finally she said, ‘Do you like working here then Colin?’
“I said, ‘Yes ma’am’.
“ ‘The Captain likes to sleep, you know’, she replied.
“Then, while she was driving, her hand comes down to my leg. I am now petrified.
“I have had the bing, her hand is going towards my knee and she says to me, ‘Where is my banana, Colin?’
“ ‘Your banana ma’am?’
“ ‘Yes, my bloody banana. Where is it? Every morning they put a banana in the car. What is the use of the job you do when you can’t even make sure the banana is in the bloody car?’
“This was my first week and no one told me to put a banana in the car for the princess.”
Her favourite drink is Coca-Cola but on flights where the airline only served Pepsi her staff insisted the air stewardess broke the news to Anne.
The Princess left school after A-levels, skipping university to become a full-time royal.
The following year, at just 19, she became president of charity Save the Children — going on to succeed the Queen as its patron in 2016.
Unlike Princess Diana, who broke the mould by hugging people she met, Anne rarely picks up any of the children she sees while working with the charity.
Brian Hoey says: “She is a woman whose public image shrieks out ‘Do not touch. But I have seen terribly disfigured children try to touch her and she never flinches.
The Princess says: “It’s not just the children who notice but think how hurt their parents would be.”
In the autumn of 1984, Sgt Tebbutt was in Bangladesh ahead of a visit by Princess Anne for the charity. Children would ask: “When is Queen Victoria coming to see us?”
But before Anne could make the trip, India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was murdered by her own bodyguards inside the official residence.
Instead, the Princess travelled to India to represent the Queen in Delhi, where Mrs Gandhi was cremated in public on a funeral pyre.
Colin says: “In the wake of the assassination people were being slaughtered in their thousands. The situation was frightening.
“We earned our money that day. But Princess Anne took it all in her stride.”
Six months later she returned to India to resume her tour for Save the Children and visited the new Prime Minister, Rajeev Gandhi.
As Princess Anne arrived at the PM’s residence, a soldier with a rifle began screaming at her protection officers.
Colin says: “The princess was getting out the car and I was walking towards her. I wasn’t armed and I am looking straight down the barrel of a .303 rifle.
“The Prime Minister’s representative called out that the Princess was going to be all right. Don’t worry.
“I did bloody worry. Then a group of soldiers marched me and my colleague into a barbed wire area and kept us prisoner there.
“Eventually they let us go and that night we saw the different side of the princess.
“We were both sitting in the British High Commission. There was a knock at my bedroom door. It was Princess Anne, who said, ‘I would just like to say thank you’ and went out.
“That’s all she said, but she said it with a lot of heart. It was thank you for what you did today.”
‘She was cool, calm and collected’
A decade earlier, in March 1974, despite having no training, Anne had survived a kidnap attempt on The Mall when a Ford Escort blocked her official car as she and Captain Phillips were returning to Buckingham Palace from an event.
Her protection officer, Inspector Jim Beaton, was shot as he went to challenge armed fantasist Ian Ball.
The officer’s Walther PPK pistol jammed, so he stood between the attacker and the Princess. He was shot twice more but survived.
Anne’s chauffeur Alex Callender, along with PC Michael Hills, who was nearby, and former Sun news editor Brian McConnell were also shot. All recovered.
Ball tried to drag Princess Anne out of the car, aiming to hold her hostage for £2million ransom which he planned to give to the NHS.
The Princess refused to go with him. Ball fled and was later detained under the Mental Health Act. He remains in Broadmoor.
Insp Beaton, who was awarded the George Cross, says Anne was the reason they all got out alive, explaining: “She was cool, calm and collected. It kept the situation under control.”
Biographer Brian adds: “Her first reaction was ‘I was furious, because he ripped my dress’.
“She wasn’t being flippant as she realised the seriousness of the event. It was her modest reaction to the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her.”
Since then, every member of the Royal Family — including Princess Di and Meghan — has undergone SAS training in how to survive being kidnapped.
Brian once asked Diana about her feelings for the other royals.
He says: “She told me she admired Anne the most because of ‘her no-nonsense approach to the role’.
“I also asked the Princess Royal if she had ever felt she might have helped Diana find her way in the early days, the sort of help Meghan says was denied. But Princess Anne said it would have been presumptuous on her part to have offered. However, if asked, she would have been willing to give some advice.”
In the newly released photos, taken in late February, Princess Anne smiles broadly in a chair, wearing a Maureen Baker evening dress and Sue Palmer bolero jacket.
In another she shows a hint of a smile, wearing a Sue Palmer green dress. And in the third, a casually dressed Anne poses under a tree.
Brian adds: “I’ve seen Anne bejewelled and gowned at State functions and in jeans and desert boots in far-off countries. She may be 70, but she is a unique individual with courage, determination and an uninhibited zest for life.”
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