Warring princes William and Harry should take a leaf out of Princess Anne’s book and quash their little squabble
IN the mid-80s I was dispatched to New Zealand to track down the rumoured “love child” of Captain Mark Phillips, who was still married to Princess Anne at the time.
I had no names and New Zealand spans 103,000 square miles, so it was like a vast game of Where’s Wally without the aid of a stripy jumper.
I failed the task but, eventually, it emerged that the child, born in 1985 to art teacher Heather Tonkin, was a daughter called Felicity, now 37.
It is not known if Mark and Anne’s children Zara and Peter have ever met her, but after their parents’ subsequent divorce in 1992 (the year of the Queen’s Annus Horribilis), their father went on to marry Olympian horse rider Sandy Pflueger, with whom he had another daughter, Stephanie.
Are you keeping up at the back? Good, I’ll continue. Stephanie, now 24, was brought up in a house on Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Estate, where Mark continued to live after their divorce, so has a close relationship with her half-siblings.
Consequently, when she got married last weekend, her wedding was attended by Princess Anne, daughter Zara and husband Mike Tindall, their daughters, who were bridesmaids along with the two daughters of Peter (who was there with his new girlfriend Lindsay), and his ex-wife Autumn, who was also in attendance with her new boyfriend.
How very modern.
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And of course, the back story to all of this is that when Princess Anne first met Mark Phillips in 1968, it took a while for them to become an official item because she was lovestruck by a man called Andrew Parker-Bowles, who wasn’t allowed to marry her because he was a Catholic.
So he went on to marry, you’ve guessed it, a young woman called Camilla, who ended up having an affair with Princess Anne’s brother, Charles, and is now our future Queen Consort.
If all of the above played out on The Jeremy Kyle Show, there would be widespread castigation about declining morals that threaten the very fabric of society, blah, blah, blah.
But old-fashioned aristos have always lived by different rules to the rest of us. They get away with it because not only do they keep their bed-hopping antics to themselves (unless the media gets a whiff) but they clearly consider it vulgar to appear bothered by such, ahem, minor matters as bruised emotions. So many (not all) simply love, leave, repeat with impunity.
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But that same disdain for vulgarity also prevents them from behaving badly after a split — hence the hotchpotch of exes, currents and blended siblings who pitched up to celebrate Stephanie’s wedding.
It proves that not every break-up has to be acrimonious, and it was nice to see.
And, perhaps, it will give some much-needed perspective to the Cambridges and Sussexes. If the Phillips clan can show unity after everything they’ve been through, surely a little squabble over bridesmaids’ tights can be resolved?
It could be curtains for Dame Helen as a style icon
MY admiration for Dame Helen Mirren knows no bounds, but she’s made a rare sartorial misstep with this Dolce & Gabbana chiffon frock, which costs an eye-watering £3,650.
The first rule of fashion is to never wear anything that matches the curtains.
RISHI’S UPPER HAND
MOST American trends drift across the Atlantic at some point and the Yanks’ habit of trashing potential political leaders appears to have taken hold here.
Consequently, every last one of the 45squillion candidates jostling to be the next Prime Minister is having their every antic and utterance since birth put out there by their opponents.
Little wonder Defence Secretary Ben Wallace decided not to stand for the sake of his family.
Meanwhile, a viral video is circulating of Rishi Sunak from 21 years ago, saying: “I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are, you know, working class, but . . . well, not working class.”
Er, right. So what? We all know he’s loaded and probably doesn’t spend much time hanging out with the locals at a working men’s club.
But young Rishi also mentions in the video that he takes time to visit kids from an inner-city state school and encourage them to apply to Oxford University too.
And that’s the point. It doesn’t matter if you come from a privileged background as long as you extend the ladders of opportunity for others less fortunate . . . rather than kick them away.
HOW TO BE ’APPY
MORALE is an invite-only app that provides an antidote to the nasty side of social media by only allowing users to post positive messages.
Similarly, the app BeReal, currently de rigueur among the nation’s youth, requires you to take a “real” photo immediately on notification rather than an “Instasham” one that has taken a glam squad and hours to pose for.
Both concepts are better than nothing, I suppose, but even so, they still require users to be glued to their mobile phones when, surely, the most positive message of all is to switch off and do something meaningful.
Tom's knits
WHO can forget diver Tom Daley knitting poolside at the Tokyo Olympics?
Now that hobby has been grabbed firmly by the woollen lapels and crafted into a money-making venture – namely Tom’s own line of “self-assembly” kits.
One is the “cuddle cardigan” at a cost of £125 to £155. Cripes. For that price, I would expect Tom to knit it for me and deliver it in person.
A 600K PAIR OF SHOES
BACK in 1991, HMRC decided to challenge the notion that a Jaffa Cake was a cake and, therefore, not subjected to VAT.
It was a biscuit, it claimed, and should therefore be subject to the standard rate of VAT.
But they lost, and Jaffa Cakes were ruled to be exactly as described. Fast forward 31 years and the vagaries of HMRC has reared its head again – this time in relation to Build-A-Bear’s footwear.
It seems that a doll’s shoe has a nil duty rating, but a boot on a stuffed toy carries a levy of four per cent.
Build-A-Bear lost the first two tax tribunals and, now, three judges have dismissed its appeal and found in favour of HMRC – meaning the company now owes £600,000 in backdated tax and has no doubt spent a similar amount on legal fees.
Enough, perhaps, to give every Build-A-Bear sold in the UK a pair of Jimmy Choos.
TIP FOR MY MUM
A FAKE security guard walked in to a branch of Santander in Brixton, South London, and was handed six cash boxes containing £150,000 by fooled staff.
A miracle considering my elderly mother recently stood (there were no chairs) for around 25 minutes to withdraw money from her local branch.
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Next time, I’ll tell her to dress as a G4S guard and the service will be quicker and possibly more lucrative.
'TALIBAN MEMORIAL'
MEMBERS of the Taliban have dug up a Toyota Corolla that was buried 20 years ago after their founder Mullah Mohammad Omar used it to evade capture by the US.
“This memorial should be kept in the country’s national museum,” says Omar’s brother Anas Haqqani. Hardly the Terracotta Army, is it?