A kind of verbal meme has been circulating among friends of Princess Anne in the Cotswolds in recent days, after it was dramatically revealed that she had been whisked off to hospital with concussion—having been either kicked or butted in the head by one of her horses. Imagining that a doctor or royal flunky had dared enter her hospital room and suggest the Princess Royal ease up on her equestrian pursuits, the affectionate joke consists of imitations of Anne sitting up in bed and delivering her response: “Not bloody likely!” A variation on the theme has her telling the cheeky blighter to, “Naff off!” Both immortal phrases recall, to her devotees—especially fellow equestrians in her super-posh, horsey Cotswold set who regard her as a figurehead—what they consider to be her finest qualities. The first remark was uttered on March 20, 1974, when a man forced a car carrying Anne and her then-husband, Captain Mark Phillips, to a halt on the Mall on the way to Buckingham Palace.
The would-be kidnapper shot three men before pointing his gun at Anne herself and ordering her to get in his car. She refused. “It was all so infuriating; I kept saying I didn’t want to get out of the car, and I was not going to get out of the car,” the princess later told officers.
“I nearly lost my temper with him, but I knew that if I did, I should hit him and he would shoot me.” As for, “Naff off,” it was her reported comment to photographers during the Badminton Horse Trials.