Princess Anne is famed for her no-nonsense approach and dry sense of humour and one year she really showed off her wit by gifting her brother King Charles a rather peculiar present.
The Royal Family have an array of famous festive traditions, one being with them exchanging their gifts on Christmas Eve – an ode to their German heritage – whilst they’re in Sandringham and are renowned for exchanging cheap gag gifts at Christmas rather than high end luxury items.
Speaking on Channel 4’s 2020 documentary ‘A Very Royal Christmas: Sandringham Secrets’, royal expert Katie Nicholl explained: “If you can achieve something that is tongue in cheek, and will have the Queen laughing, then you’ve really done well that Christmas. The more kitsch, the better.”
“Nothing ostentatious, or terribly expensive or lavish, that doesn’t really go down well with the Queen.”
And Princess Anne certainly showed off her wit and when the Princess Royal reportedly decided to give her brother a white leather toilet seat for Christmas in a joke about his one day becoming King.
Dickie Arbiter, a former royal press secretary, explained the thinking behind the cheeky gift. He said: “What is it we used to call the loo? We would call it the throne. You go and sit on the throne.
“So buying a leather-bound loo seat was really Princess Anne’s way of saying, ‘Here you are, you’ve got your own personal throne’.”
The Windsors enjoy “lavatorial humour” according to Princess Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell.
King Charles is also said to have his own portable loo seat accompany him on trips, according to royal biographer Tom Bower’s 2018 book Rebel Prince: The Power, Passion and Defiance of Prince Charles.
Mr Bower said Charles’s staff pack a small radio, a lavatory seat, rolls of Kleenex Premium Comfort lavatory paper, Laphroaig whiskey and bottled water along with two landscapes of the Scottish Highlands.
