Princess Anne tours a bin lorry depot in Cambridge

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Princess Anne visited the home of the Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service where she met the waste and recycling collection crews today – just hours after it was revealed her daughter Zara Tindall has given birth to a baby boy.

The Royal Family Twitter page shared three photographs of the royal, 70, during the working engagement, alongside a caption which read: ‘This afternoon The Princess Royal visited the home of the Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service where she met the waste and recycling collection crews.’

‘Her Royal Highness thanked the refuse loaders and bin lorry drivers who have worked as frontline key workers throughout the pandemic, through times when households have generated more recycling and household waste than ever due to lockdown.  

The visit comes just hours after Mike TIndall revealed wife Zara, 39, gave birth to son Lucas Philip Tindall, weighing 8lbs 4oz, at 6pm on Sunday on the bathroom floor of their family home on Princess Anne’s Gloucestershire estate. 

Meanwhile, Prince Charles and Camilla are attending a dinner with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou at the presidential mansion in Athens this evening. 

During her visit, Princess Anne was shown the service’s new electric bin lorry, the first electric bin lorry to operate in Cambridgeshire.

She wrapped up warm for the outing in a dark coat which she accessorised with a brooch, and a pink and grey scarf. 

Earlier today, proud father Mike Tindall, 42, who shares daughters Mia, seven, and Lena, two, with his wife, shared his baby joy on his podcast The Good, The Bad and The Rugby – and hailed Zara a ‘warrior’. 

He later revealed he took the little one straight downstairs to watch sport on TV, after snipping the cord and enjoying skin-on-skin contact. 

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are ‘delighted’ at the birth of their 10th great-grandchild, Buckingham Palace said, with a spokesman adding they are ‘looking forward to meeting him when circumstances allow’. 

The unconventional royal birth announcement via Mike’s podcast shows yet again a different approach from the Tindalls, who revealed their third pregnancy in the same manner. In the past, the couple had pregnancies formally announced by Buckingham Palace.  

Former England rugby legend Mike told podcast hosts Alex Payne, James Haskell and guest Ellis Genge: ‘Sunday got even better because a little baby boy arrived at my house!’

Mike added that they hadn’t yet decided on a name at the time the podcast was recorded on Monday, admitting they never pick one before they arrive, but Zara was soon up and about and they took him for a walk that morning. The name was announced on Tuesday by a spokeswoman for the couple.

A spokeswoman for the couple said: ‘Zara and Mike Tindall are happy to announce the birth of their third child, Lucas Philip Tindall.’ The little boy is the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s 10th great-grandchild, and 22nd in line to the throne.

Speaking about the birth, Mike told how Zara had experienced contractions the night before, so they organised childcare for Mia and Lena – but the little boy arrived so fast they didn’t have time to make it to hospital.

Mike recalled: ‘Fortunately Zara’s friend Dolly [Maude] is, she’s actually more important than I am at making sure she’s been at all three of my children’s births, she was there and recognised that we wouldn’t have got to the hospital in time, so it was run into the gym, get a mat, get into the bathroom, towels down, brace brace brace!

‘Fortunately the midwife that was going to meet us at the hospital wasn’t that far away so she drove up, got there just as we’d assumed the position, and then the second midwife arrived just after the head had arrived!’ 

Asked how Zara was doing, he replied: ‘As every man will say, she was a warrior, as always. They always are. We can never judge a woman in terms of what they have to go through with childbirth so… no, she was back up, we went for a walk this morning with him, and yeah all good.’

Mike told how the birth was very different to their previous children; he said: ‘It’s been a slow journey, so first one was in Gloucester Royal, done the right way, we was induced as well that one, and then second one was in Stroud in a local birth clinic, and this one we didn’t even make it there.

‘I literally was like yep, snip snip, I’ve got my boy, I’m out, I’m out of here!’

He added: ‘The best thing about being at home was, the best thing, as soon as he’s wrapped up, you’re skin on skin, straight downstairs, TV room, golf on, and I was like, this is what me and you are doing.

‘There was actually a ridiculously old rugby game on, it was Bath versus Wigan, I was like, we’re gonna stick that on first, ’96, I was like right, you can watch a bit of that, and then I went to the final day of the golf.’

Asked how his daughters reacted, Mike admitted they didn’t tell them they thought Zara was in labour, but he suspected Mia had sussed. 

‘Mia’s quite on it, she’s quite street smart, so she was like, “why are we not going home for tea?” They were going, “they’ve had to pop out for something…” “where have they had to go?” will you just stop asking questions… and then when she got in she was over the moon, both of them were. 

‘Problem is Lena is like, “my baby!” And it’s like, no Lena, it’s not your baby! She tries to pick it up… so yeah.’

The baby’s birth comes just a few weeks after Zara’s cousin Princess Eugenie had her son August on February 9. 

The couple, who suffered two miscarriages after the birth of their eldest daughter in 2014, were the first royals to openly speak about the heart-breaking experience.

In December 2016 the couple revealed that a pregnancy announced the previous month had ended in a miscarriage.

Two years later in an interview with the Sunday Times, Zara, opened up about the devastation of losing the baby and revealed she had suffered a second miscarriage before falling pregnant with daughter Lena, now two.

Zara, 39, and husband Mike, welcomed eldest daughter Mia in 2014.

She revealed in December 2016 that a pregnancy announced the previous month had ended in a miscarriage.

Speaking about her experience to The Sunday Times in 2018, Zara said the hardest part of her first miscarriage was having to tell the world because news of the pregnancy had been made public.

She explained: ‘In our case, it was something that was really rare; it was nature saying, “This one’s not right.” I had to go through having the baby because it was so far along.’

Zara was pregnant with Lena at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in May 2018, and was caught on camera turning to her husband to tell him she was desperate for the toilet.

Zara received an MBE in 2007 for services to equestrianism and won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics as a member of the Great Britain Eventing Team.

In August 2020, Tindall was selected for her first appearance on the British Team competing at the prestigious FEI Nations Cup in Le Pin au Haras, France. 

In September she rode her new horse Happenstance at the Cornbury International Horse trials in Oxfordshire, competing in the dressage test.

Zara continued competing during her previous pregnancies.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic lockdown restrictions, Zara and Mike have been vocal in their support for healthcare workers.

During the summer, Mike shared a photo of him and Zara clapping for NHS workers on Instagram. 

The couple sported their Kindred T-shirts, the entire proceeds of which go to NHS Charities Together.

Zara, Princess Anne’s daughter, and Mike live a relatively low-key life on Gatcombe Park, located in the heart of the Cotswolds, just a few miles away from Highgrove, Prince Charles’ home in nearby Tetbury.

The Queen bought the Grade II-listed manor house for her only daughter and her then husband, Captain Mark Phillips, as a wedding present, and the couple moved in 1977 – and raised their two children, Peter and Zara, on the estate.

Zara met Mike during England’s Rugby World Cup-winning campaign in Australia in 2003.

They announced their engagement, and as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772 – which has since been repealed – the Queen gave her consent to their marriage in a meeting of the Privy Council on 10 May 2011.

The couple married on July 30, 2011.

Zara is godmother to Prince George, the son of her cousin, the Duke of Cambridge.