Happy birthday to our no-fuss Princess

At 65, Princess Anne is working as hard as ever – and proving to be an inspiration to us all

Last week, the Princess Royal welcomed large crowds to the grounds of her Gloucestershire home for the British Festival of Eventing. She asked them to enjoy the beauty of their surroundings and the spectacle to come, but then reminded them that they needed to respect the countryside, and remember that for the rest of the year, Gatcombe Park is a working farm for rare sheep and cattle.

The whole scene summed up the Princess: gracious and regal, certainly, but also brisk and no-nonsense; in all the essence of determined, understated Britishness. So understated, in fact, that few gushing reports or serenades will mark her 65th birthday, which falls today. Now, it may be true that some women feel 65 is no age to celebrate – but this day marks many years of service for which we should all give thanks.

The Princess has hardly changed over the past few decades, and still has the high-octane energy that enables her to undertake more official royal engagements than almost any other member of her family (528 last year, second only to the Prince of Wales). And she does it all with the minimum of fuss. Making no concessions to age, she walks fast, drives fast and thinks fast; writes and delivers her own speeches (mostly without notes), and, like her father Prince Philip, enjoys stirring up a bit of controversy, even if it’s just by cannily recycling an outfit.

Indeed, she cares admirably little for fashion (although she does have a signature look in her trademark French pleat) and, many years ago, was horrified to discover that the Princess of Wales, never her favourite, had spent more money on outfits for a single trip to Africa than she herself had spent in several decades. Thriftiness is important for Anne; extravagance unattractive: she draws £228,000 from the Queen’s private allowance, which puts her on a par with a highly paid executive, but she does far more in a working day than most executives, and refuses to be a burden on the taxpayer.

She has sensibly excluded her children from becoming a burden too: Zara and Peter, unencumbered by titles, are involved in the world of commerce without besmirching the royal name. They both admire and respect their mother; although Zara was always more of a handful than her dutiful brother, and though Anne found her daughter very difficult, they now get on well. “She’s a hard worker and always has been,” Zara says. “It’s definitely rubbed off.” The Princess spends most of her time working as president or patron of her 340 organisations, and has been president of Save the Children since 1970 (although, typically, she always refuses to be photographed kissing children).

Her spirit of independence and determination is summed up by her fondness for lighthouses, with which she first fell in love in childhood, when she accompanied her mother to Tiumpan Head on the Isle of Lewis. Her second husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, whom she married in 1992, shares this love of “pharology”, which they indulge on sailing holidays in their yacht Ballochbuie. The Princess is now the patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board, and has already dutifully toured her way around 80 of the 209 lighthouses dotted around the Scottish coastlines.

Then, of course, there are the horses. Her international competing days are over now, but such is her love of the animals that, as she once wryly said, “when I appear in public, people expect me to neigh, paw the ground and swish my tail – none of which is easy”. She rides with the Household Cavalry every year in the Queen’s Birthday Parade, and one of her priorities as a grandmother is teaching her three grandchildren to ride. Naturally she doesn’t put up with any nonsense or tears.

Ultimately, we love her because she is the best of us: tough, practical, hard-working, dutiful, and undemonstrative. Happy Birthday, Your Royal Highness.