45 years ago today, Princess Anne married Captain Mark Philips at Westminster Abbey. Although it’s now supplanted in the nation’s memory by the subsequent weddings of Anne’s brothers and nephews, at the time it was huge. 14th November 1973 was declared a National Holiday and the service attracted a global TV audience of 500 million. It was also the reason thousands of Britons got a colour TV for the first time. And once they’d experienced colour, they (literally) couldn’t look at black & white again. I’ve always rather liked Princess Anne. Never flash or embarrassing, she’s always just got on with her life and consciously avoided the limelight. Before she married, she was a world-class show-jumper and when her marriage didn’t work out, she and Mark Philips quietly got divorced and Anne discreetly re-married. This track (sort of) has Anne in the title but would you dare call her “Annie”? No, me neither.
The forgotten royal wedding
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