Princess Anne has delivered so many memorable lines in her life but it doesn’t come much more no-nonsense than when she was at the centre of a terrifying kidnap plot in 1974. When she’s on royal duties Princess Anne has security and given the expertise of the royal protection officers, it’s astonishing how close she came to being abducted on her way home to Buckingham Palace from a charity event.
After her protection officer, driver and a journalist passing by who’d come to their aid were all wounded by Ian Ball, her would-be-kidnapper, Princess Anne kept cool, calm and collected. She might have only been 23 years old at the time, but she refused point blank to go with Ball.
