Bethan Holt: Why we need Princess Anne now more than ever

Princess Anne in ITV's documentary marking her 70th birthday. Photo / ITV

Princess Anne's PR team couldn't possibly have planned for ITV's documentary celebrating the Princess Royal at 70 (the big day itself is on August 15) to come out in the same week as extracts from Finding Freedom, the tome setting out the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's side of The War of the Waleses 2.0.

And yet, after days of royal laundry airing, there couldn't possibly be a more refreshing reminder, in take after take, of just what a no-nonsense, good-humoured princess Anne really is. There's the quip about setting her grandchildren outdoor lessons during lockdown: "I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since." The acknowledgement of the ease of seeing out the pandemic on the Gatscombe Park estate: "Look around – it's not hard here". The revelation that she likes to work the "back of the border" at palace garden parties, as that's where the shy people hide away. This is not a woman about whom one could ever imagine anyone saying, "what Anne wants, Anne gets".

Though the Princess Royal so often flies under the radar, she is one of the hardest working members of The Firm – carrying out 506 engagements last year, just 15 fewer than big brother and future King, Charles. Her children, Peter and Zara, spend much of their time on camera laughing off any suggestion that they might be able to make her slow down as she marks her 50th year of public service.

Princess Anne, with her bull terrier dog. Photo / Getty Images

Rather than braying for attention, she is seen dismissing the need for the Queen to be able to see her on a Zoom call with carers – "you know what I look like" – while she simply won't be convinced by sculptor Frances Segelman to be portrayed wearing a tiara, as they're "not my thing".

That's not to say there aren't moments which wouldn't look out of place on a top designer's moodboard. For one charity visit, she pairs a classic beige trench coat with a teal pashmina, which she wears as a headscarf, creating a country gentlewoman-meets-Parisian catwalk feel. For years, Anne's flair for style went underappreciated, eclipsed by the obvious glamour of Princess Diana and later the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex. But her eye for detail, idiosyncratic styling and penchant for rewearing make her an ideal poster princess for fashion in 2020.

In some scenes, she wears an elegant tweed blazer and cream silk blouse, which nod to her equestrian passions yet wouldn't look out of place on a fashion editor on the front row. Let's not forget that Anne recently made headlines for wearing outfits first debuted nearly 40 years ago – such as the navy and cream coat worn for both Royal Ascot in 1980 and the Commonwealth Day service in 2018.

There are hints, too, at how she's remained the same size; namely, a lot of dog walking, but no time wasted in the gym. Her children also describe how she would return from royal engagements and, still in her smart clothes and make-up, simply pull on her wellies and stomp off to tend to the chickens.

"She's developed a style of her own, and she sticks to it," notes her husband of almost 28 years, Vice-Admiral Timothy Laurence, clearly baffled at being asked to comment on his wife's fashion choices. This is the couple, after all, who spend their holidays sailing on the west coast of Scotland, but Anne's innate practical elegance is never in doubt.

Princess Anne on her wedding day with her husband Mark Phillips. Photo / Getty Images

She hasn't been in public, as far as I can tell, without her hair in that chignon/beehive hybrid since 1973; a serious commitment to a signature look. Though she has never watched The Crown, she admits to being bemused by reports that Erin Doherty, the actress playing her, spent two hours having her hair done for filming each day. "How could you possibly take that long?" she wonders. "It takes me 10 or 15 minutes."

The documentary is also a reminder that she wasn't always the understated underdog: apparently the first princess to wear a mini skirt, she marked her 21st birthday with a cover shoot for Vogue, in splashy Seventies florals that could easily be part of an advertising campaign for one of the high-fashion prairie dresses which are so on trend now.

The medieval-style gown, designed by Maureen Baker, which she wore for her first wedding to Captain Mark Phillips in 1973 was a pre-Diana fairytale concoction. There's footage, too, of her winning Sports Personality of the Year in 1971 dressed in a taffeta ruffled dress with a crystal belt – very Molly Goddard (the designer behind Villanelle's killer dress in Killing Eve) – and driving a tank in a silk scarf and khaki boiler suit.

Her acknowledgement of how difficult it is for younger members of the family to cope with the modern glare of attention has been interpreted as an expression of sympathy for Harry and Meghan: "Living with that sort of pressure is hard," she says. But one can't help but feel that her "cool, calm, collected" attitude (as summed up by the bodyguard who was with her during the 1974 kidnap attempt, when she was 23) could teach some members of her family a thing or two.

The picture painted of "Colonel Anne", as she's called by the King's Royal Hussars, is one of a profoundly sensible woman who doesn't drink and doesn't take herself too seriously, yet retains a stoical sense of duty. In the unlikely event Prince Andrew can still be the Queen's favourite child, this portrait will cement her as the country's, even if she's had to play the long game to get there.