Memories: Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal

memories support our fight to protect yours hello i'm jackie stewart and i'm here again for a wonderful edition of memories and we're particularly proud today to have somebody very special her raw highness the princess royal is joining us for memories because fortunately for me we've known each other for quite a long time it all started i suppose mom when we met you had won the daily express sports woman of the year and i had won the dale express driver of the year and we were at the savoy hotel and i'll never forget before that i was told that i i had to do a photograph session and i said i don't have the time i'm running too late you've got to do it and i finally went into this little place that they had told me to go to and this photographer was and i said look i'm in a big hurry i can't be any more than what five minutes to do this and this turned out to be one of the greatest photographers in the world called cars and i believe i behaved like a complete idiot in front of this genius and i said no i've got to go and it was the same man by the way who took that great picture of churchill you know when he asked churchill to take his cigar to his mouth and churchill wouldn't do it and he just got the camera ready and he pulled the cigarette out of churchill's mouth and there was that terrific horrific look that he gave him and that was a cash as well i mean i knew i knew his name because of the photographs he took of the queen and sadly he's no longer with us no no but jackie this was a long time ago it's a minor miracle we're still here well i see what we are we're still alive i mean your support was considerably more dangerous than mine in any case i think yours is yours has got safer as a result of you i'm not sure about mine you're still dangerous that's the problem um that day i remember it was such a big day for me um and we sat together unlike normally you the two people are away you know on each side of the chairman or something and i remember saying to you you you referred to the fact you'd be in a bit of a rush and i said well what was the big rush it says well i was cleaning out the stables and i thought for god's sake the princess was cleaning out the stables i don't really think that was appropriate and i i was of course my my rush was because of cash but all the time you've been in your equestrian world you've been hands on and everything haven't you well we were brought up that way that you know if you had ponies and horses if you rode you had to understand about them and what they needed and they were the first thing you did and the last thing you did um was to look after them i said we were always we were always brought up that way my mother was always very keen that we should do all those things not just to have a pony tacked up and ready to go and then you got off and left it at the end so yes we we were brought up to do the whole job it's at that occasion we started to talk about my sport too i remember i invited you to come up to silverson at some time when you wish to do so um and in fact i remember i came to windsor i think it was to to drive you up and when you got there you came in and said that who's driving and i said well i'll be driving mum oh you were rather disappointed and that hasn't changed if i may say so you you drive more than any other lady i know sorry well i suppose that that may be true i mean i still drive i don't drive as much as i did but no and i suspect we or did we talk about go-karts as well because that's how that's how we started on go-karts and then graduated to old-fashioned land rovers so that's how we started driving but i i remember well um you know uh days together doing different things and you were always keen to be behind the wheel that was that was for sure and you drove that day you drove well you sat in the turtle there's a wonderful photograph maybe you've seen it at home when you've been at clayton's house and a lovely man called walter hayes at ford yes got it got this photographer said i've got a fantastic picture and i'm going to sell it everywhere and walter said no no no no you can't do that because nobody seemed to be at that time knew you from buckingham palace downwards that you would have been at silver's driving racing cars so we managed he managed to get it stopped but i think it's one of the nicest photographs that i've got at home because you had you enjoyed yourself it was it was very clear yeah well it was you you took us around first and then you let us loose on those um and i seem to remember we managed to do that without causing too much yeah i came out i went out with you to begin with in a very hot uh touring car british touring car championship car and i said look i'll drive you around and i want that and then i handed it over to you and i was in the passenger seat and i said well i was giving you a bit of a a heads up and you know racetracks are very wide and it's not like telegraph balls and other things you can see what speed you're entering corners and where you and of course you didn't need to be told all that but i finally got out the car and off you went and we could hardly get you out the car after that and god knows how many laps you did i'll take your word for that i not being the world's best passenger i was only really good in the car driving i mean i just didn't feel well being driven so that's my excuse i was never a good passenger just for the way i felt not because of the quality of the driver honest i mean that this there's a pass for me i i sit in the passenger seat quite happily as a match fight um ganker that was uh always great to see because when you were first married you went to gatcon park it was a lovely house and we started you started a shoot there and we used to do a bit of shooting there that was a lovely period even before the horse trials started and it was it's a wonderful land the typography of it is wonderful and i met somebody there who you remember well and we had great fun with was with trevor banks uh and he of course knew you well because of horses and because of you know his business was in fact selling horses too but what a character yeah i mean he he came directly as a result of his link through my trainer then alison oliver and a horse that went to him uh from alice indoors so it the horse was the connection um but yours of my connection was mine was the horse yours was driving championships but the link with him was shooting yeah and he he had always been involved in shooting and had his own shoot up in yorkshire and uh we so we continued that sort of friendship through horses and into shooting and that's how you met him yeah yeah that's right no it's absolutely right because and he was a very good shot too he was part of the menial task division when when the horse trials began i don't think trevor ever sank to those levels he had a slight superior presence let's put it that way we did all the work but what a group of people that was it was good fun because in those days there was we were still learning the ropes literally and we were told i seem to remember that we had to um string off all the local roads to stop people parking along the roads and blocking them so we off we were sent with the string and the and the sticks i seem to remember you sat in the car telling us what to do [Laughter] well i always remember that you seemed to be quite upset that i was the president of the mass division yes especially as you spend most of the time no nowadays [Laughter] no no but you also i mean that turned out to be a huge event and there's still a very strong event oh it's still a yes i mean it's grown in some respects because it covers all of all the championships now from novice upwards uh and it's been a very it's a very different track it's a very challenging track and it has remained a championship course uh which is you know has grown maybe more difficult in some ways but it has it's popular with the riders and it and it i think it's an appropriate championship course and at that time of course mark was designing the course too as he did in many other courses right in fact around the world well he started off the process and he and and he was that his experience with here at gatcom that led him to go on to design elsewhere and became one of the most sort of popular and sought after but he still designs his i mean you know uh peter now runs it as a part of his uh his role is to run it but uh mark still does course design i remember well one of my trips to gotcom and trevor was there uh with her good self and trevor said oh you're you're all right with these fancy cats what about one horsepower and remember the indoor school that you had you had me in the back of that horse what was its name it was that famous one i think you were on goodwill goodwill exactly which was about 17 high or something yeah it felt like a hundred hands high and i'll let you forget it and then and of course i thought and it was a very gentle trip drop for a wee well then trevor banks whistles and the damn things started to go faster and i just didn't know what to do i and the other thing ma'am if i might say i wasn't dressed for the occasion either it does help if you're dressed for the occasion when i got off i was a very painful boy that's all i can say but if you if you remember you also had to sit on his um his olympic show jumper hideaway yes i did too but he was way bigger than uh goodwill he was he was that you look like a piano drum on him it was absolutely staggering yeah and well i am i am a man of average hyper [Laughter] yeah the other great thing that we we've shared in respect to things like that was that glenn eagles for the the celebrity events that we had and you know i've got a list here somewhere of the people who were there and one of the last ones of course there was your good self there we had well the king of grace was there as well but we had half of the royal family actually because there was a royal team and then there was a team of sportsmen and a team of and then there was the the rich and bossy that was another team and they were all sponsored but i mean i'm looking at this now harrison ford steven spielberg barry gibbs sean connery rod laver wayne gretzky the great ice champion of them willie carson uh kirito one and can you imagine the dame kirita kanna when nobody expected an opera singer to be shooting play pigeons and she had never shot before no that's right and we get i she came up a day early and i gave her a few lessons shooting she won the ladies event best shot didn't she well good foundations she's gone on to thoroughly enjoy her shooting hasn't she and she's a really good shot she's a grand shot they were very good events and you raised an awful lot of money for various things that was you know all for charity i mean set some standards in fundraising i can tell you one of the things was that when steven spielberg came along it was surrounded by security you know because it's american um and of course everybody else and there was a lot of well family people there of course nobody recognized they had security it was very discreet they weren't there and he's and i go to speak to him and i'm saying how very pleasing i am that he's coming to the event and he starts looking over my shoulder and i'm thinking what have i done to deserve this and and suddenly says excuse me but that looks like king hussein of jordan over there and i said yes that's who it is we've been trying to get permission to go to petra to do this film that he was doing with with sean and uh and steven spielberg and harrison ford they were all together on it and they couldn't get permission and i said well maybe you should speak to his majesty so i got them together bingo he got his he got his permission so he was a very happy chappie so that that was no that was a great time um not a bad place to be actually another great thing zara and peter of course and and you very kindly asked helen to be godmother for for zara and she's grown up to be a remarkable equestrian um you must have been a very very proud mother when she won the world championship apart from everything else i mean you won big events and well the only member of the royal family at that time to have ever won a global event an international event in equestrians and zara obviously it followed between mark and you the genes were there yes i mean it's never easy is it to follow on um if your parents have been successful in a sport and i've off i often wondered whether in fact she really you know that was something she really wanted to do but she was naturally talented and and she applied herself because natural talent doesn't work on its own but you also have to find the right horse at the right time and and they she managed to do that as well so that was uh toy time and her did an amazing job at both the world and european championships and that's uh pretty impressive going for single horse although sadly he missed out both opportunities to go to the olympics that particular horse so that she went to the olympics on a completely different horse i think the great advantage of having helen as a godmother was that she had such style uh and you know she was a her all her mannerisms she was so well contained and very professional to let's face it looking after you racing you know she did a real application to the role but her as a personality in her presentation and her style and i rather hope that some of that would run up rub off on zara and i hope you think it has because i do that is wonderful i mean helen of course loves zara still does and of course we see her from time to time quite often in fact but uh you know for helen it's a tough time as you're aware i mean she's got dementia and oh it's um she's hard today but not right with this in the room but you know one in three people in the world now will die of dementia and there's more people die of dementia than any other illness and that this little badge up here is race against dementia which i started a few years ago and it's quite interesting we're using sport for young phds because in sport you you're desperate to win and nobody remembers who's second and then motorsport you know the the speed of change is faster than almost anything i know so we're using that for these young people these new phds that we've got but anyway helen sends her love by the way she knows that we're doing this and she'll be very pleased to see it when it comes out i mean it's always lovely to talk to her about the things that she does remember which of course is much earlier in her life which are really fascinating stages of when she was young growing up when her first involvement in the sports and uh my i think all the youngsters find that particularly interesting nowadays mom you're still doing as many engagements probably as you ever have done is that still correct um well i think i i would say i'm trying not to but that's and just recently of course it's all it's all changed so goodness knows whether we'll be doing many more of these sort of things in the future but what i enjoy is meeting people and seeing the places that they function in so it would be a pity not to be able to stay still go on getting out and about and reaching some of the the lesser known parts of the united kingdom and elsewhere one of the big moments of your life must have been handing over that silver medal to zara at the the olympics because you are deeply involved in the olympics and have been for a great length of time well i've been a member since 88 but i was also president of the international equestrian federation um for eight years so yes i mean it was a it should have been my the the president of the fbi who did that but she insisted princess i that i do which is really nice of her because actually that was her sort of perk of being the fbi president but it was unusual it's it was our home games and uh the british team had done incredibly well so yeah it was a treat mom you've been very gracious to join uh memories and and we've shared a lot of memories and that's what we've done this little while that we've we've had together here a very big thank you for me mom uh for joining uh memories and uh i i know we've both enjoyed a lot of memories together we have indeed thank you jackie for asking me but as you're only too well aware this could have gone on for hours so well done on stopping it in time anyway all the best and to you and to [Music] [Applause] helen you

Channel: Race Against Dementia

Views: 40,113

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Id: 7FLsxZK55mA

Length: 20min 13sec (1213 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020