Princess Anne has opened up about the royal family's approach to philanthropy, her fashion sense, and the importance of not spending too much time online in a revealing new interview. The Princess Royal spoke to Vanity Fair in honour of her 70th birthday this summer, and although she didn't name anyone in particular, she said that she doesn't think that her family's approach to charitable work necessarily needs to change – even though younger royals sometimes think it does.
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Self-deprecatingly calling herself a "boring old fuddy-duddy," Anne said: "I don't think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and it's often true, isn't it? You don't necessarily look at the previous generation and say: 'Oh, you did that?' Or: 'You went there?'" The Princess went on: "Nowadays, they're much more looking for: 'Oh, let's do it a new way' and I'm already at the stage, 'Please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We've been there, done that. Some of these things don't work. You may need to go back to basics.'"
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Princess Anne turns 70 in August
The mother-of-two also spoke about her parents, the Queen and Prince Phillip, still working into their nineties, saying: "I think both my father and my mother have, quite rightly, made decisions about, you know, 'I can't spend enough time doing this and we need to find somebody else to do it,' because it makes sense. I have to admit they continued being there for a lot longer than I had in mind, but we'll see."
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Explaining her thrifty fashion sense, which often sees her recycle amazing vintage outfits, Anne joked that this was because "I'm quite mean". The Princess also revealed that she has little time for technology, saying: "I find it very difficult to understand why anybody gets sucked into screens and devices. Life's too short, frankly. There's more entertaining things to be done." She then poked fun at herself, adding: "I suppose that puts me in the real dinosaur range." Sounds pretty switched on to us!
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