Former royal chef answers Earl Spencer with classic Princess Anne one-liner
"Have you ever flown before? It was like that!" That was Princess Anne, the Princess Royal's answer when an official asked how her flight had gone.
The story comes from Darren McGrady, the former royal chef who cooked for Queen Elizabeth II for 11 years and for Diana, Princess of Wales and her two sons for four years. He shared it after Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, described his own awkward encounter with the Princess in his new memoir.
Earl Spencer's book, Swan Song: My Sister, was published on 22 September. In it, he writes that Princess Anne made him feel "small" with a "withering" remark about the christening of her daughter Zara Tindall at a dinner party at Buckingham Palace Hello!.
McGrady said that recollection "tickles me". He called the Princess "her father's daughter", a nod to her late father Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was famous for blunt one-liners.
To make his point, McGrady recalled flying back from Balmoral, the royal family's estate in Scotland, with Princess Anne on the Queen's Flight, the aircraft then used for official royal travel. As they stepped off the plane, an official asked, "How was your flight?"
Anne did not miss a beat. "Have you ever flown before? It was like that!" she replied.
McGrady has spoken about Earl Spencer before on Instagram, where he said he had bumped into him at Althorp, the Spencer family home in Northamptonshire, a few weeks ago.
What makes this stand out is the tone. McGrady has previously called Princess Anne "fantastic" to work with. His flight story paints the same picture as Earl Spencer's dinner-party story, just from the other side. Short. Dry. Very Anne.
