The late Queen Elizabeth was woken up each day by the stirring sound of bagpipes, but that is nothing compared to the hilarious yet shocking royal wake-up call Mike Tindall once received. Although Princess Anne lives at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, she has a flat at St James’s Palace in London too.
According to Zara Tindall, her now-husband once spent the night there after a long evening out with a friend and almost missed a commitment the next day. But not on her watch! As reported by The Mirror, the equestrian royal spoke about her solution to Mike oversleeping during an appearance at London Sporting Club Lunch.
"He overslept and was staying at St James's Palace. Our PR girl was like, 'Where is he?' I rang the police at St James's and said, ‘Can you wake Mike up?’ He was in my mum's flat. They let themselves in," Zara allegedly explained. "He says they came in with guns."
The retired rugby star himself previously shared this anecdote from his perspective at a fundraiser for DEBRA. The national medical research charity supports those living with epidermolysis bullosa and the Duchess of Edinburgh is their Patron.
Mike was supposed to be at a coaching clinic in 45 minutes’ time but had only got back to St James’s Palace at 4am the night before - as witnessed by the police on the security cameras.
"My friend rings up Zara, who phoned the police posted at the palace. They started giggling, saying they saw me at 4am on video cameras struggling to get to the doorway," he reportedly shared, as per Gloucestershire Live.
Mike continued, "She says, "I don't care what you do. He needs to be in North London in 35 minutes. Next thing, five guys in full riot gear with machine guns come in saying, ‘Get up, get up’."
Thanks to Zara’s hilarious actions, he was in the "back of cab with the police waving [him] off" within just three minutes. This was definitely a dramatic way to be woken up after just a few hours’ sleep but it’s a brilliant story for the couple to tell and Mike probably won’t be wanting to repeat this in a hurry.
Now he’s a father-of-three, it’s possible he and Zara are both very used to unexpected or early wake-up calls from their children Mia, Lena and Lucas. In her speech at the London Sporting Lunch, Zara Tindall mentioned her kids and revealed her wish for them to hold the "same values" as her and Mike and for them to be involved in sport like them.
The devoted mum reportedly said, "I hope that our children will learn as well. I want to make sure especially how life is now, it is so easy to be distracted from that kind of thing, so we try and work every day to make sure they get the same values that we had."
"I would love them to be involved in sport as it makes you a rounded person. That is what I want for them. I think every child in the whole country should be able to be open and be able to try every sport, at least one time," the Olympic silver medallist declared.
