Thank you, Zonk, for expanding this topic to its own thread.
I thought that I therefore would select a 'random' working day in the life of the Princess Royal and then check the Court Circular for that day:
Here is the day I have selected: not a 'special royal occasion' day, just an 'ordinary' working day for Princess Anne: [I have added my count
in red]
1st December 2011
BUCKINGHAM PALACE:
The Princess Royal, Patron, Restorative Justice Council, this morning received Mr. Lawrence Kershen (Chairman) and Mrs. Elizabeth Nelson (Director).
1 engagement
Her Royal Highness later opened the Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History's new premises at 29 Russell Square, London WC1, and was received by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London (Sir David Brewer).
1 engagement
The Princess Royal, Director, London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, today attended a Board Meeting at 1 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14.
1 engagement
Her Royal Highness, Patron, Riders for Health, this afternoon attended a Reception at the Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1.
1 engagement
The Princess Royal, Patron, Spinal Injuries Association, this evening attended the Association's Legal Dinner at Jumeirah Carlton Tower, Cadogan Place, London SW1
1 engagement
I admire the Princess Royal very much indeed, by the way, and acknowledge that she is a very hard working member of the BRF.
Anyway, by Mr O' Donovan's calculations, on 1st December, the Princess Royal had 5 separate engagements. She was certainly very busy that day and indeed worked until the evening. That is quite a workload. I am the first to admit that comparisons are often invidious, but if you look carefully at what she is doing, you can note several points:
1. All the engagements were in London.
2. By Lunchtime, the Princess Royal has completed 3 engagements.
3. Princess Anne does of course have an appartment in BP, and her final engagement, although it involved an evening attendance, was literally under 10 minutes from home - and of course, she has [quite correctly] police clearing the route that she is taking, which would be up to Hyde Park Corner and then down to Knightsbridge. Thus she did not have either a long drive before dinner or afterwards when she returned home at night.
4. The Engagements, although very important in each case, were largely 'pleasant' in tone. HRH's contact was apparently limited to professional people, in 'nice' surroundings and were also presumably quite carefully timed, in order to avoid 'keeping people waiting'.
I am now comparing this in my own mind with one Engagement that I remember when the Duchess of Kent [then a 'full-time working royal'] visited Helen House [it is now Helen and Douglas House] in Oxford, a hospice for life-limited children. The Duchess spent a lot of time there, meeting the children, some of whom were so ill that they did not realise HRH was there, although their parents and their families did. There was a lot of hugging from the Duchess, particularly when the tears flowed. Which they did, quite often. The Duchess also met all the staff, i.e. nurses, physicians and domestic staff. The Duchess stayed for as long as is took to see everyone.
This engagement involved travel from the Duchess' London base and, since it involved suffering children, must have been quite harrowing. It counted as 1 engagement, although HRH would have left early in the morning and not got back to London until quite late.
I must make it very clear that I am not in any way criticising the Princess Royal, and neither am I seeing to 'down play' her role - indeed, she has I am sure had harrowing times during her SCF field visits. What I am trying to do is to highlight how the 'numbers of engagements' does not tell the whole story. On the whole, though, the Princess Royal's Engagements are often said to be 'rather like business meetings' whereas the engagements undertaken by the Duchess of Kent often involved things like illness and similar [the Duchess was at one stage Patron of the Samaritans and also took the full training; although it was never announced publically, she was believed to have actually 'taken her turn' on the Samaritans' phone rota].
I hope that this is of interest to some forum members,
Alex