It was a big day for Princess Anne - and not just because she was visiting Hampshire.

She began her tour in Alton where she was greeted by cheering crowds as she opened a new £125,000 St John Ambulance headquarters. She wore a smile and her demeanor was said to have been “relaxed”, despite major waves taking place in her private life.

While the princess was on the whistlestop tour of the county, she received news that her decree nisi had gone through uncontested, and her divorce absolute to Captain Mark Phillips would go ahead.

Later she visited the town’s citizen advice bureau before heading to Marwell Zoo, Eastleigh.

Here she made a new friend in Barbara the Lemur and fed her grapes before opening the New World of Lemurs complex.

Accompanied by the zoo director Johns Knowles and chairman of the trustees Nicholas Jonas she toured the complex before visiting the educational centre where she watched schoolchildren handling a python.