“We had a sort of discussion about where or where not we were going to go,” Anne stated humorously, remembering her exchange with Ball in an interview with Michael Parkinson in the 1980s, triggering laughter from the audience. “Well, he said I had to go with him—I can’t remember why,” she included facetiously, relying on Phillips, who responded, “You were quite obstinate about it.”
The princess stated, smiling, “I said I didn’t think I wanted to go. I was scrupulously polite, ’cause I thought, silly to be too rude at that stage.”
The audience remained in stitches.
“And we had a fairly low-key discussion about the fact that I wasn’t going to go anywhere, and wouldn’t it be much better if he went away and we’d all forget about it,” Anne continued. She asked Phillips, “It got slightly rougher, didn’t it, at one stage?”
“I mean, public figures have always been in danger to some degree…” the ever-unflappable Anne continued. Though myriad dangers were directed at the royal household throughout the years, she mused, “perhaps your greatest danger is still the lone nut case who has just got enough to put it together. But it would be fair to say that if anybody was seriously intent on wiping one out, it would be very easy to do.”
The celebration line soon after the attack was that the royal household “had no intention of living in bullet proof cages,” least of all Anne, who resumed her normal regular the next day.
