When Peter was four years old, Anne found she was expecting another baby. Mark was relieved; during their seven-year marriage they had stayed together by staying apart and he hoped the baby would bring them closer. So did the Queen when they told her at a belated fiftieth birthday party held for Princess Margaret at the Ritz Hotel in London. News of royal babies travels fast and the following morning, Buckingham Palace was inundated with calls.
There was only one problem: Mark’s parents didn’t know. Anne was close to her mother-in-law and anxious for her to hear the news before she read about it. The difficulty was that Anne Phillips and her husband, Peter, were on holiday in a remote Cornish cottage without a telephone. Eventually Anne contacted the local police to ask if they would send someone round with a message to telephone her ‘urgently’.
The communication got through, and shortly afterwards, a worried Mrs Phillips was on the line from a local callbox. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Thank goodness I reached you,’ Anne replied. ‘I’m pregnant!’
Princess Anne sending the police round so she could tell her in-laws she was pregnant again in 1980
‘Royal Children’ by Ingrid Seward (1994)
