Princess Anne's visit to the Isle of Wight. (Problems seeing this video? You may need to install Adobe's free Flash player)
LESS than a year since her last official visit, Princess Anne was back on the Island today (Friday).
To coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Territorial Army (TA), the Princess Royal, colonel-in-chief of the Royal Logistic Corps (RLC), paid a visit to the TA Centre, in Drill Hall Road, Newport, where she met soldiers from E (IW Rifles) Troop, part of the corp’s 266 Squadron.
After posing for a formal troop photo, Princess Anne spoke to a number of soldiers about their roles within the RLC.
Dressed in survival suits, Pte Rob Halliday, 24, from Newport, and new recruit Pte Gemma Whitchurch, 28, from Ventnor, talked to the princess about emergency abandon-ship procedures.
“The princess told us a tip, which she had been given by one of her cousins, saying we should wait until the sinking boat was at the same level as the liferaft before getting in.
“She also wanted to know about us as people, our backgrounds and what motivated us to join the TA,” said Pte Whitchurch.
Before leaving the TA Centre, Princess Anne, who also spent time in the family suite with troops and their families and met army and air cadets, was presented with a bouquet of flowers by three-year-old Rhys Nixon, from Cowes, son of Staff Sgt Shaun Nixon.
Earlier she had met staff and patients at St Mary’s Hospital during a tour, which took in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the chemotherapy unit and the new MRI scanner.
While In the NICU, Gill Kennett, associate director of child and family healthcare for the IW NHS Primary Care Trust, told the princess about an appeal, which is being launched on Monday, to raise money to move the NICU next to the maternity unit.
Supt radiographer Alistair Day gave the princess a demonstration of the MRI scanner, installed at the end of last year.
Princess Anne’s first port of call when she arrived on the Island was the Cowes factory of Island clothes retailer Artigiano.