#mike tindall interview | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

princessanneftw · 6 months

Text

The Princess Royal interview: ‘I’m not sure that rewilding at scale is necessarily a good idea’

With conservation close to her heart, HRH explains what’s needed to save animals under threat and how the monarchy plays its part

By Jessamy Calkin for The Telegraph

Inside St James’s Palace there is a bit of a flutter about the weather. Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal has several engagements today, and things are not looking good; due to wind, the helicopter might not be able to land at the designated sites, which will make travelling times to and from events longer.

The staff are waiting to be informed by the police, who are in touch with the helicopter pilot. HRH, as everyone seems to call her, has not yet been told.

She has a lot to fit in: directly after our interview, she is off to a meeting about Gordonstoun school, in London, by car, then by helicopter to give a speech at an English Rural Housing Association conference in Bedfordshire, followed by a visit to the Aircraft Research Association, where she will unveil a plaque, then back to St James’s Palace to change for evensong at The King’s Chapel of the Savoy, where she will be reading the lesson for the Royal Victorian Order.

Her day will finish at about nine, when she will be able to eat. Quite often she has a dinner engagement as well. Next week she is going to Mumbai for four days.

Not for nothing is she known as the hardest-working royal. She is involved with more than 300 charities, organisations and military regiments, and last year carried out 200-plus engagements – more than any other member of the Royal family.

Her first official engagement was at the age of 18; shortly afterwards, in 1970, she became president of Save the Children – a position that led to her being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize – and her work with that charity continues to this day.

Early on, her father, the Duke of Edinburgh, advised her to pick the charities she was interested in – and her interests have multiplied.

But one charity that is particularly close to her heart is the Whitley Fund for Nature, which is why I’m here. Started by Edward Whitley OBE as the Whitley Awards, WFN is now celebrating its 30th anniversary, and the Princess has been a patron for 24 years.

The annual ceremony takes place at the Royal Geographical Society in London and is colloquially known as the Green Oscars; WFN distributes grants totalling around £500,000 to worthy international winners.

So far, £20 million has been awarded to 200 conservationists across 80 countries. And the Princess has never missed a single ceremony, presenting the awards and delivering heartfelt speeches.

HRH is quite probably the most respected member of the Royal family. Her lack of pomp and ceremony and the low-key dedication with which she carries out her duties is much admired. There is no whingeing. She refused titles for her children, Peter and Zara.

She is well known for her dry sense of humour. She is an exceptionally accomplished horsewoman and in 1976 became the first member of the Royal family to compete in the Olympics; she had won Sports Personality of the Year five years earlier. She famously resisted an attempted kidnap in 1974.

She has also become an inadvertent style icon, often rewearing outfits she first wore decades ago, which is both charmingly thrifty and impressive in that she can still fit into them, and she seldom buys anything that is not made in the UK.

She recently made a good-natured appearance on her son-in-law Mike Tindall’s podcast The Good, the Bad & the Rugby and she seems like an all-round good egg.

She has both gravitas and spirit – there was some very moving footage of her accompanying her mother’s coffin on the long journey from Balmoral to Westminster Abbey.

Back in St James’s Palace, Charles, her private secretary, is arranging the chairs, anticipating where she might like to sit. HRH arrives in a striking bright-green suit over a striped silky shirt and heads smartly for a different chair than the one offered.

How did she first get involved with Whitley? ‘That’s entirely Edward’s fault,’ she says in her crisp voice. ‘But the common denominator is Gerald Durrell.’

The Princess grew up reading Durrell’s books and became patron of his zoo in Jersey, part of what is now the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, in 1972. ‘He very kindly asked me to become involved in the zoo – as it was then – in Jersey, and Edward [later became] one of Durrell’s trustees.

‘He and I had similar beliefs in what Gerald was doing. Apart from the fact that Gerald wrote very good books, during his travels he seemed to understand better than most the impact on the populations in which animals lived and the relationship between them and their animals.

‘Being told you have to save this, that and the other is all very well but have you been there? Have you ever tried living in that environment to find out what that means to them? Because the fundamental point is that unless the conservation comes from the local area, it won’t be sustained.’

No one is going to save an animal just because they’re told to. ‘You’ve got to work out how the animals are going to survive with the people who live there, who will be the ones who make sure that it works.’

What was Durrell like? ‘Every bit as entertaining as you would think. His humour but also his understanding of the relative importance of things in other people’s lives was absolutely fascinating – and he was spot on.’

Durrell said he felt ‘sympathy for the small and ugly; since I’m big and ugly I try to preserve the little ones’. He was an expert on captive breeding, with a view to releasing into the wild, and he tended to select animals that were close to extinction, or those that could best be helped, or just ones that were not very charismatic.

‘Yes, not the sexy ones,’ says the Princess. ‘Or the obvious ones. His approach was very holistic. He understood the impact of habitat – not just on one species but how all of the things that lived in that habitat related to each other and that you couldn’t replicate that instantly somewhere else – it was very specific to an area.’

Gerald Durrell died in January 1995, of septicaemia. He was an alcoholic and had successfully received a liver transplant but died of complications it gave rise to. ‘He told me that there was no point doing a transplant because his old liver had got used to being fed all the things he’d been given to eat and drink in order to make deals as he went round the world,’ the Princess says, smiling.

Durrell’s legacy is long. One of his innovations was to establish training for conservationists from around the world. The first trainee went on to become the first director of the National Parks and Conservation Service in Mauritius, and thousands of students from 151 countries have since attended the centre, whose graduates became known as Gerald Durrell’s Army.

This became the title of a book by Edward Whitley, who travelled round the world to assess the progress of some of the trainees and the animals they were conserving – such as the largest eagle in the world in the Philippines and Alaotran gentle lemurs in Madagascar.

To launch the book in 1992, Whitley was invited to give a talk at the Royal Geographical Society, and he asked the Princess to come along. It was at the book launch that he decided to set up the charity.

‘I sat down with Nigel Winser, who was the deputy director of the RGS and a long-time friend, and we designed what became the Whitley Awards on the back of a napkin,’ he tells me. In 1999, Whitley asked the Princess to become a patron. By then, ‘Attenborough was already on board, which encouraged her to think it wasn’t a fly-by-night organisation which would crash and burn’.

The awards focus on community-based conservation projects around the world. In order to qualify, each project has to be up and running – it cannot be a pipe dream. Initially there was only one award; this year there were six – of £40,000 each in project funding – plus a Gold Award of £100,000, given each year to a past winner in recognition of their outstanding contribution to conservation.

‘The reason WFN is so effective,’ says Alastair Fothergill, whose company Silverback made the acclaimed TV nature series Wild Isles, and who like Attenborough is a WFN ambassador, ‘is because its grants are awarded at the very cutting edge of conservation, where relatively modest funds can go a long way. Over the years, the fund has kickstarted the careers of many pioneers who have become leading lights in conservation.’

This year’s projects included safeguarding seabird nesting sites in Mexico; establishing ‘lion guards’ promoting coexistence in Cameroon; and protecting pangolins in Nepal, lemurs in Madagascar, freshwater fish in Lake Victoria and saiga antelope in west Kazakhstan. Each one heavily involves local communities.

In addition, WFN provides continuation funding for award-winners. To mark the 25th anniversary of Whitley, Kate Humble, also an ambassador, and Attenborough hosted an event at the Natural History Museum to help raise £1 million for continuation funding.

‘It was the first really big fundraiser we had,’ says Humble. ‘And one of the donors underwrote the entire cost of the event – so everything raised went into the continuation fund.’

The RGS ceremonies are joyous events. In addition to being presented with their award by the Princess Royal, each winner has a short film made of their work, narrated by Attenborough, screened at the event. ‘I’ve been going for 20 years,’ says Humble, ‘and every year I’m blown away by the winners – what they’ve overcome, what they’ve achieved.

‘You hear so much bad news, and you think, you know what? The world can be OK because people out there are doing this stuff – it’s demonstrable, it’s scientifically rigorous and it’s working. [It’s] an incredibly uplifting and inspiring evening.

‘And every year I watch Princess Anne speak and she never sounds like she’s reading someone else’s words. She cares deeply about what this charity does and what these people who win the awards have achieved – she is not a figurehead just trotting out nice words and providing a photo op. She could run the charity, she knows it so well and cares about it so deeply.

‘I’m not anti-royal,’ says Humble, ‘but neither am I someone who would go and wave a Union Jack. But when I see her I think, frankly you’re worth whatever it is we pay.’

HRH talks with fluency and knowledge on every subject. ‘She’s like a sponge – it’s unbelievable the information that’s stored in her brain,’ said her daughter Zara in an interview for ITV’s Anne: The Princess Royal at 70. ‘It’s quite annoying as well.’

She needs to know a lot because she works with a diverse range of charities, taking in early years, healthcare, microfinance and animal welfare. Promoting collaboration between charities is key. ‘I do a lot of that,’ she says now. ‘I have meetings bringing them together which they all seem to enjoy, though sometimes it’s a bit illogical.

‘Knitting together all the international NGOs is important, but we need to look slightly outside the box – can we do this better, are there ways of helping people to be more sustainable?’

The Princess does occasionally discuss conservation with the King, she says, but she won’t say if they always agree. And her grandchildren? How does she teach them about conservation? (She has five, four girls and a boy.)

‘I don’t see so much of them but making the point that they live in an area which they shouldn’t take for granted is important I think; both my children are aware of that.’

Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, where the Princess and her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, live in an 18th-century manor with 730 acres of parkland, has some beautiful trees – ‘the ones that survive – quite a lot don’t, we live on Cotswold brash which is not popular with plants; but having said that we have beeches.

‘You’ve just got to live with what’s there and make sure it doesn’t get overwhelmed. I’m not sure that rewilding at scale is necessarily a good idea – it probably is in corners, but if you’re not careful you rewild all the wrong things because they are just the things that are more successful at growing.

‘My biggest row at home is ragwort. Lots of people think that ragwort is absolutely brilliant because butterflies love it, but it’s not good for the horses [it is toxic]. I would say don’t take all the ragwort out, just where the horses are – but it’s quite a delicate balance.’

There are, she says, ‘quite a lot of horses at home, but they’re other people’s as well’. She rides whenever she can. ‘It’s a very good place to observe nature from.’

The Princess supports several horse-related charities, and became patron of Riding for the Disabled in 1971, and president in 1985. ‘It was just becoming a national body when I was invited to become a patron – at that stage I knew nothing about disability but the concept that ponies or horses could make a difference was obviously interesting and I knew about them. No matter what the disability was, the answer was, if they’d like to ride, we’ll give it a go. The commonality of the experience was important.’

Essential things for running a charity, she says, are evaluation and thinking of the long term. She cites the influence of Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, ‘who constantly evaluated programmes to see if they were making a difference, whether they were doing the right things and whether people were invested’.

And it’s important to keep projects focused and manageable. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that scale is the thing that defeats any good idea, because it can get to a size where people can’t cope.’

She has spoken in the past about the huge value of long-term commitment, in terms of the constitutional monarchy as well as in charity work. ‘Seeing things in the long term is a challenge,’ she says now, ‘but maybe part of our [value] – as a family – is long-term continuity, because the long-term view is quite hard to come by. And I think we can do that.’

May I ask what she might have done as a profession in another life? HRH laughs and looks vaguely impatient. ‘You can ask but I’ve no idea.’ Does she ever think about that?

‘Not really, and it’s way too late to have those concerns – in a way the fortunate part of my life has been the broad spectrum, to see so much. Not having a very specific interest has been a bonus, I suppose. We all have ways of doing things and with Whitley it is the practical aspects of what they do, and how to support them [that has been my focus].’

Edward Whitley, a member of the wealthy Greenall Whitley brewing family, set up Whitley Asset Management in 2002, alongside its finance director Louise Rettie, to serve a small number of clients. But there had always been animals in his life – his great-grandfather founded a small charity called the Whitley Animal Protection Trust; his great-great-uncle Herbert was an eccentric animal breeder who started Paignton Zoo.

In Edward’s office is a stuffed cockatoo that belonged to Herbert and a photograph of Mary, his favourite chimpanzee. Mary was famous for riding around on her tricycle and walking the dogs, or taking visitors by the hand and leading them round the zoo.

Edward studied English at Oxford then went into banking, joining NM Rothschild & Sons in 1983. He left in 1990 to write: Gerald Durrell’s Army came out in 1992 and he also co-wrote Rogue Trader, the autobiography of disgraced banker Nick Leeson, and worked with Richard Branson on his memoir.

Whitley is a tall, gentle man who doesn’t like talking about himself but is full of unbridled enthusiasm for WFN, and in particular its royal patron. ‘She transformed the charity – we never would have had the success we’ve had without her involvement. She saw what was possible and really helped us to achieve it, and she inspires the winners to do more. The winners are always pretty amazed at how she cross-examines them and cuts to the chase so quickly when she meets them.

‘She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the world, and a phenomenal memory, and she is also very funny… And think of her father and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award – she’s seen what a lifetime of work can achieve.’

In her speech at the Whitley Awards earlier this year, the Princess Royal cited her father, Gerald Durrell and Edward Whitley as the inspirations for her work with WFN. Among winners and their communities, she said, ‘it’s the global ambition to truly make a difference that has been astonishing’.

The awards, she continued, are for ‘the people on the ground, they’re the sharp end… It’s all very well to be here and understand what we think are the challenges, and want to make a difference, but when you meet the people who are actually out front and can turn that into a reality, it’s a real inspiration.’

Over the years, she has visited some of the winners’ projects, when her charity work takes her to those countries, ‘but not as many as I would like’, she says. In Uganda, for example, she met Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, who was working on improving hygiene in local communities after viruses had spread to gorillas she was managing in Bwindi national park. And in 1997, before she became a WFN patron, she travelled in a boat up the Amazon to see pink dolphins.

‘She was in Colombia for Save the Children and she asked the British embassy to include a visit to the Amazon in her trip – she was very interested in the dolphins,’ says Dr Fernando Trujillo, who went on to win an award in 2007.

‘The British embassy contacted me as an expert on rivers and dolphins. I was a little bit intimidated, and it was raining and I was worried we wouldn’t see any dolphins, but in the end we counted 32 – and she was so excited, every time she saw one she would jump up and down with excitement, and then rein herself in as if she suddenly remembered she was a princess. I could see her love for the environment was very genuine. From that day she was my favourite royal person.’

Another winner, Pablo Bordino, whose picture with HRH had been in the paper in Buenos Aires was flying back to Argentina. One of the flight attendants recognised him and when he arrived at the airport there was a television crew waiting to meet him. It raised the profile of his NGO - which protected marine life and habitats in Argentina - enormously and enabled him to generate further funding. ‘That’s the effect HRH has,’ says Whitley. ‘You can’t quantify it.’

Several award-winners went to the Princess’s 60th-birthday celebrations, including Claudio Padua, a successful businessman from Rio who gave it all up to pursue conservation, training at Durrell in Jersey and moving to a forest in Brazil with his wife, Suzana, and three children.

HRH had been to see them at their headquarters outside São Paulo and had taken an interest in their efforts to conserve the black lion tamarin, a monkey. They had no idea her visit would be such an ordeal, with all the security arrangements. ‘We had a call to ask what kind of security we had,’ says Claudio. ‘I said, “I have an old dog, that’s all.”’

‘She turned up with a security detail and entourage,’ Suzana adds. ‘They wanted to go into the forest to see the monkeys in our Land Rover and her security team asked, “Has this car been checked?” I said it hadn’t and they became very nervous but she ignored them and just got in anyway.’

Years later, the Paduas were invited to Buckingham Palace for her 60th. ‘It was a beautiful opportunity for us,’ says Suzana, ‘and as she came down the stairs she spotted us and said, “Oh how nice to see you. How are the monkeys?”’

The Whitley Fund for Nature is hosting a #PeopleforPlanet biodiversity summit on 6 and 7 November at London’s Royal Institution, where members of the public can hear live from Whitley Gold Award-winning conservationists from Africa, Central and South America, and Asia

#a new anneterview!#I love that she seems to remember everything and everyone #the part about her jumping up and down when she saw the dolphins #what a mood #princess anne #princess royal #british royal family #brf #newspapers #anned i quote

93 notes · View notes

celticcrossanon · 8 months

Note

Celta, there was a lovely royal surprise this weekend. Mike Tindall co-hosted a podcast interview with his mother-in-law, Princess Anne along with William and Catherine. If you go to youtube, type in "The Prince of Wales, The Princess of Wales & The Princess Royal at Windsor Castle" by the YT channel the Good, The Bad, the Rugby and you'll find it. It's 50 minutes so it's nice to watch with a cup of your favorite beverage when you have some downtime. :) Enjoy!

Hi Nonny,

Thank you for telling me about this. I have seen pictures but I haven't listened to the podcast. Something to enjoy later. :)

14 notes · View notes

jerseydeanne · 1 year

Text

#mike tindall #zara tindall #british royal family

10 notes · View notes

heir-less · 1 year

Text

I don't think I'll ever like Mike Tindall. Him wearing his wife's fascinator and having a quirky social media presence does not compensate for him having two drunk driving convictions and whatever the fuck this interview was.

I seriously think the only member of Anne's family I like is Autumn, and she got out of there with swiftness, and maybe Tim because he's so boring it's almost impressive.

#text #mike

14 notes · View notes

sassyfrassboss · 2 years

Note

Remember its not just Archewell employees and Sussex squadies that are real winners here with their derogatory remarks, BBC’s Amol Rajan called Mike Tindall a “skinhead” and wanted to throw bricks at the Cambridges. But lets not forget the cutting bitchiness of Meghan (Alexis Carrington) twisting the Kate made me cry lie. Also does not say much about a person when they target a three year old and openly criticize them either.

Meghan said "Kate owned it and apologized." Owned up to Meghan bullying Kate's toddler daughter. Yeah, nice try Meghan.

Meghan also brought up Waity Katy in the interview to make a point that while it is "hurtful" it wasn't anything close to what Meghan experienced with "racism."

She is legit trying to compare who was more hurt but the press comments.

Kate was flat out harassed, chased, and bullied by the paps and the press for years and not once has she said a damn word.

Meghan gets a few bad headlines and she can't shut up.

20 notes · View notes

saintmeghanmarkle · 8 months

Text

The latest interview debunks Meghan's claim that the royals are formal behind the door! by u/Kinda_novice

The latest interview debunks Meghan's claim that the royals are formal behind the door! Here's the Podcast:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG3i9UX14Bk&ab_channel=TheGood%2CTheBad%26TheRugbyIn this latest podcast video, Anne, William, and Catherine give a very personal interview as rugby patrons. And one thing that I noticed that has come up again and again is how close-knit the royal family is behind the door. Be it Mike Tindall sharing how competitive Catherine is when it comes to sports, and beer ping pong (wink wink) or Catherine revealing how she absolutely loves trying out new sports, and then Mike pitching in and saying that Catherine is a big fan of late-night cold water swimming. It just shows that the royals behind the door share a great rapport and love spending time with each other during family gatherings. It didn't give off the so-called formal behind-the-door vibe at all. And now cut to Meghan's claim in the Oprah interview, she says that the royals are formal behind the door. Was her lie debunked in this interview? Many of her lies such as the royals not being allowed to wear the same color as the senior working royals were debunked, earlier, too. post link: https://ift.tt/hlG3mQE author: Kinda_novice submitted: September 10, 2023 at 05:44AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

1 note · View note

qudachuk · 8 months

Link

Kate appeared on Tindall’s podcast The Good, The Bad, And The Rugby alongside the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal.

0 notes

hrhzaratindall · 3 months

Text

Mike Tindall on meeting Zara

#in the paper a lot back then 🤣#piercings and things 💀#zara tindall #british royal family #british royalty #zara phillips #royal family #royalty #british #brf #royal #mike tindall #interview

36 notes · View notes

princessanneftw · 4 years

Text

Mike Tindall: 'Zara and I are planning to send Mia back to school in June'

By Eleanor Steafel for The Telegraph

Mike Tindall has spent much of lockdown asking himself a question by now familiar to parents up and down the country: what would a teacher do?

Over the past eight weeks the Tindalls have joined the legions of families juggling homeschooling one child while keeping a toddler occupied, supporting vulnerable loved ones from afar, and trying to get some work done in between it all. With his wife Zara still needing to put in the hours training her horses on the Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire, where they live, the programme of year one classes for their eldest daughter Mia, six, has mainly been shepherded by Mike - to varying degrees of success.

“Zara still has hopes that the horses will get back, they still need training and working on, so I get to be a teacher in the mornings which is sometimes really nice, sometimes really frustrating,” he tells me over Zoom. His Zoom background, incidentally, looks like a rather impressive bookcase but in fact, he reveals with a wry smile, “It’s wallpaper, I’m not that well read.”

The homeschooling, he says, hasn’t always been a walk in the park. “I don’t think any child is a great homeschooler because they definitely listen to other people better than they listen to their parents.

“[Mia] can be brilliant one minute and then something you’ve seen her do a thousand times she’ll just go ‘I don’t know how to do that’ and then you go ‘well I know you do’, and she’ll just say ‘no I don’t’ and then you get frustrated, and you’re trying not to get frustrated.”

Doubtless a familiar scene for the millions of parents currently attempting to provide an education from their kitchen table. “She enjoyed it the first week because it was different being around Mum and Dad all the time,” he says. “But then, ultimately, it’s the same people who are telling her off or telling her what to do and I think then she gets bored of that.”

They are hoping Mia will return to school on June 1st, as per the government’s plan to allow reception, year one and year six children back in the classroom. “The plan is, at the moment, that she would go back but obviously that’s still up in the air,” he says. “Every day you read different things... we’ll just have to wait.

“There is no ideal situation,” he adds, but is encouraged by statistics suggesting children are unlikely to suffer from coronavirus or pass it on to adults. “As long as they’re doing everything they can to make it as safe as possible,” he believes reopening would be a positive step.

He’s also keen to ensure the girls maintain their independent spirits. “They definitely enjoy having that full time attention, but you also want them to have some independence. That’s the side you want them to keep developing.”

Tindall is also navigating the tricky business of supporting parents who are shielding. His mum and dad live 200-odd miles away in West Yorkshire; his dad, Phil, has lived with Parkinson’s for 17 years, and his mother, Linda, has asthma. They have just started to go for the odd dog walk, but have mainly been confined to the house since mid-March. “It’s just tough... they don’t want to be cooped up but they are very worried about going too far afield and getting too close to everyone else.”

His brother Ian lives a few miles from them, “which is reassuring,” though he worries what would happen if his dad had a fall, as he would be unable to enter their house. “It would be very difficult for my mum to move a dead weight. And if his medication wears off and he can’t move and he’s not in a place where he can sleep then mum’s got to try and get him into bed.

“It’s just very tough for her. It’s pretty much like that most of the time but at least [usually] she knows that she’s got my brother on the doorstep... If you don’t have that it just doesn’t make [for] a very nice environment.”

WhatsApp video calls have taken the place of in-person visits, enabling them to chat to their grandchildren and watch them playing. That is, when Mike can “make them understand how a phone works. Most of the time I’m talking to [Dad’s] head or up his nose. But once you get that sorted you can get the kids on and that’s what they miss.”

However good the technology, however, “you still can’t have a hug,” he says. “Everyone loves a hug.”

When they are next able to be together, he and Zara’s youngest daughter, Lena (who is about to turn two, and counts Prince Harry among her godparents) will have changed a fair amount in the time since her grandparents last saw her. “It could be six months since their last visit and a lot changes at that age in six months. All you can do is keep taking photos and videos and sending it to them.”

They are yet to see his mother-in-law Princess Anne, who lives in another house on the Gatcombe Estate, in the flesh, but she has been getting to grips with tech, too. Many royal engagements are now being carried out via video: the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge popped up on Zoom to surprise a Bingo session at a care home this week, while even the Queen, who is isolating at Windsor, has got on board, receiving a video call from baby Archie on her birthday.

“It’s busy still for them,” he says of Princess Anne, who appeared on a call with World War II veterans earlier this month to mark VE Day. “She works so hard with all her charities and she’s still got a lot to do, so they’re still in full flow.”

Disappointingly, there have been no Zoom quizzes with the Cambridges or Sussexes, or competitive sourdough action on their WhatsApp group. “Actually it hasn’t been that active,” he laughs. “I think everyone is just getting on with it.”

The former England captain has always worn his royal links lightly - in part, one imagines, thanks to his upbringing. He eschewed university, instead joining Bath Rugby at aged 18 and making his national debut against Ireland at Twickenham in 2000. He now realises that this was the same year his dad started to show the initial symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, although it would be another three years until it was diagnosed.

That delay is one reason he is so determined to raise awareness. His annual celebrity golf day raises around £90,000 every year for the Cure Parkinson’s Trust, and though the tournament can’t happen this year, he is running an online auction to raise funds for the Trust, the NHS and the Matt Hampson Foundation, with proceeds to be split between them.

Tindall hopes he can “raise a fair few coins for the coffers”, particularly for the charity founded by his friend Matt Hampson, who became paralysed from the neck down in a rugby accident in 2005, and is currently in the vulnerable category during lockdown. “He is already permanently on a ventilator with his fractured and dislocated neck, and he doesn’t know if he can go out until there’s a vaccine.”

Tindall seems a pretty level-headed, get on with it sort of man, but admits he has spent the last two months “up and down a little bit,” he says. “You get to spend a lot of time with the kids and family which is unbelievable.” But life is also “in a bit of limbo, and you’re trying to fill the day with positive things to keep you mentally attuned and focused.”

A day always works better, he says, “when there’s a bit of a plan around it so you don’t wallow the hours away”.

He still has “a lot of questions about how things will look after”; both for his beloved sport, and the hospitality company he is an ambassador for. “But,” he admits, “I’m ready to break out - when we’re allowed to.”

Mike Tindall has launched an online auction to raise money for the NHS, The Cure Parkinsons Trust and Matt Hampson Foundation. To bid, visit jumblebee.co.uk/thestadiumoflife

#homeschooling is taking its toll lol #aw they havent seen anne #good that he’s doing another thing to raise money #mike tindall #zara tindall #mia tindall #lena tindall #princess anne #british royal family #brf #interview

24 notes · View notes

royal-confessions · 2 years

Photo

“The royal family is constantly accused of orchestrating a hate campaign against Harry and Meghan without evidence. Meanwhile Harry and Meghan have done things like personally telephoning a person who called Catherine an "anorexic hoe" (among many other things), collaborating on Omid Scobie's book, and allowing their lawyer to appear in a documentary directed by a man who tweeted that he wanted to throw a brick at Will and Kate or that Mike Tindall was a skinhead (again among many other horrible things). Who is orchestrating the hate campaign, then? And then they have the nerve to preach about kindness.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Harry had complained (or sue, not clearly) on court about the Mail on Sunday article debunking his statement that he offered to pay police protection has caused damage to his reputation, inciting hate comments that had hurt his feelings. Wasn’t the Oprah interview goal to cause the exact sane to the Royal Family, more specifically to Charles, William and Kate? Because that’s caused waves of hate and reputation damage to them. Harry should shut the fuck up and face the consequences of his actions” - Submitted by Anonymous

#Prince Harry #Meghan Markle #meghan duchess of sussex #popular

56 notes · View notes

the-empress-7 · 3 years

Note

Telegraph article from February 2014:

“Zara Tindall has risked irritating the Queen by selling exclusive photographs of her daughter Mia to Hello! magazine for a six-figure sum.

The Queen’s granddaughter is the most senior member of the Royal family to sell the rights to the first portraits of their child, and signed the deal despite previous denials that she intended to make money from the birth.

Pictures of Mrs Tindall with her husband Mike and their daughter appear on the front cover of this week’s Hello! and across 13 pages inside. In an accompanying interview, Mrs Tindall talks publicly for the first time about giving birth, disclosing that she had an epidural.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on whether the Queen had been consulted about the coverage or even informed in advance that the deal had been done for pictures of the 16th in line to the throne.

But when Zara Phillips, as she was then, married Mike Tindall in 2011, she was reportedly frustrated at being told by Buckingham Palace she could not sell pictures of the wedding to Hello!.

When her brother Peter Phillips sold pictures of his wedding to Autumn Kelly in 2008 to Hello! for a reported £500,000, palace aides let it be known that the Queen was not happy with the decision.

On that occasion, the Queen and other members of the Royal family were angry that their attendance at the wedding had become a selling point for the 20 pages of photographs that appeared the following week.

The pictures of Mia would not have commanded such a high fee, as they do not include other members of the Royal family, though the couple are understood to have received more than £100,000.

The photographs were taken two weeks ago by Anya Campbell, a professional photographer and friend of the couple who has photographed other members of the Royal family in the past and had no idea they were going to be sold on to Hello!.

Since Mia was born at 1.51am on Jan 17, Mr and Mrs Tindall have been careful not to be pictured in public with their daughter, apart from on one occasion when the new mother was photographed pushing a pram.

The Hello! pictures were taken at the couple’s home on the Princess Royal’s Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire. In the interview, Mrs Tindall described her daughter as “pretty relaxed and happy so far” and said: “I still keep looking at Mia and thinking, 'Oh! We made that!’”

The 32-year-old told the magazine that she had an epidural when she gave birth on an NHS ward. She had decided in advance that she wanted the epidural “rather than try and fight the pain”.

She also said the couple — who want two children — had hired a maternity nurse for four days after they got home from hospital, “mostly to learn bits and pieces like bathing and feeding and general routine” but were now managing on their own.

Mr Tindall, 35, a former England rugby player, said that: “As soon as we had Mia I sent a text to all the family. Zara is very close to her grandmother [the Queen] so of course she made a phone call once we got back home.”

Mrs Tindall first posed for Hello! in 2002 when she was paid a reported £125,000 for an “at home” photoshoot with her then boyfriend, Richard Johnson, the jockey.

She has no Royal title and is a professional equestrian, funding her stables through sponsorship with firms such as Land Rover and Rolex.

A spokesman for the Queen said: “Zara looks after all her own publicity. We wouldn’t comment on whether the Queen was informed.”

A spokesman for Mrs Tindall said the couple had agreed a deal with Hello! “for the future of their family”.

Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy group Republic, said: “Clearly she is exploiting her links to the Royal family for financial gain. It’s not really appropriate for her to be cashing in like this, but then again cashing in is what the Royal family do best.”

Last September, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s son Lord Frederick Windsor and his wife Sophie Winkleman posed for Hello! with their baby daughter Maud. Other royals who have posed for Hello! include the Queen’s nephew Viscount Linley, Princess Alexandra’s daughter Marina Mowatt and the Duchess of York”

Of course 16th and an Olympic champion isn’t 6th and the son of a future king 🤦‍♀️

Thank you for this. If The Queen was irritated with Zara over this, she better come for Harry's life for doing the exact same thing. And I can't wait to hear what Graham Smith will have to say about the same.

42 notes · View notes