Princess Anne reporting for duty! King’s sister holds Investiture at Windsor Castle for recipients including The Queen director Stephen Frears – after Charles, Kate Middleton and Prince William postponed royal duties

Princess Anne held an Investiture at Windsor Castle on Wednesday for recipients including The Queen director Stephen Frears.

With the King due to be treated in hospital this week for an enlarged prostate, and the Prince and Princess of Wales also away from their regular duties after Kate’s abdominal surgery, the Princess Royal, 73, conducted the ceremony.

On Instagram this evening, the British Royal Family’s account shared several photos from the occasion, writing: ‘Congratulations to everyone who was presented with their honours by The Princess Royal at today’s Investiture. 

‘Recipients included: Film director and producer Sir Stephen Frears. Simon Daglish OBE, Co-Founder of Walking With The Wounded, and Fundraiser for Tommy’s.’ 

Sir Stephen, whose career includes an impressive body of work spanning five decades, put his knighthood down to ‘just being lucky’. 

Among his most famous films is 2006’s The Queen, which won Dame Helen Mirren an Oscar for playing Elizabeth II and Sir Stephen a best director nomination.

He has also been lauded for My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons, Victoria & Abdul, Philomena and The Grifters, for which he was also Oscar-nominated.

After collecting his honour for services to film and television, Sir Stephen said: ‘It is a really nice thing. I have no complaints. I have been very, very lucky and you still need an enormous amount of luck.

‘I have been very, very lucky in my choice of material and the people I have worked with.’ Sir Stephen added: ‘It has been a nice day and now we will go have tea.’

It seems unlikely he will revisit the late Queen or the monarchy for future projects any time soon. He joked: ‘Now you cannot make a film in Britain unless it is about the royal family. I have done what I had to do.

‘I was being frivolous but there have been an awful lot of films about the monarchy and there weren’t any when I made The Queen.’

Sir Stephen’s work in television includes A Very English Scandal, Quiz and The Deal, about the friendship and rivalry between Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Born in Leicester in 1941 and educated at Cambridge, Sir Stephen worked in theatre and at the BBC before making his feature film debut with Gumshoe in 1971.

He first made his mark with the 1985 interracial drama My Beautiful Laundrette, based on a Hanif Kureishi story and starring Sir Daniel Day-Lewis.

Since then his career has been peppered with stories of real people, including Mrs Henderson Presents starring Dame Judi Dench; Victoria & Abdul, in which Dame Judi revives her portrayal of Queen Victoria; The Program, starring Ben Foster as disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong; Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep as the deluded soprano, and Philomena, with Dame Judi this time playing an Irishwoman on a quest to find out what happened to the baby boy taken away from her in the 1950s.

He also made a documentary called Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, about the boxer’s refusal to fight in Vietnam.

But it is The Queen that is arguably one of his most significant and acclaimed work, with Dame Helen playing the late monarch in the days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. It also stars Michael Sheen as Sir Tony Blair, reprising his role from The Deal.

Dame Helen won the best actress Oscar and the film was nominated for best picture, best screenplay and best costumes, while Frears was nominated for his direction.

Meanwhile, he co-founder of the Walking With The Wounded military charity said he is ‘super chuffed and slightly amazed’ to have been made an OBE.

Simon Daglish, 59, of Battersea, south-west London, who has raised around £10 million for various organisations including Tommy’s, the pregnancy charity, said: ‘It has been an amazing journey and I have been deeply honoured to be recognised.’

Speaking after collecting his honour for his charitable services from the Princess Royal at Windsor Castle, Mr Daglish said: ‘Ed Parker and I founded Walking With The Wounded in 2010 and we never really felt it would be as big as it is.

‘Within a year we realised we had something that had caught the public’s imagination.

‘Then we realised we were really able to help people. We were able to help people who were devastated by war and give them new hope – that was the most amazing thing.

‘When people join the Army, they are incredibly active and that is the nature of the gig but if you lose one of your legs or your arms you can feel that the world is over.

‘What we hope to do is to give people back that hope and let them know they can still achieve great things regardless of what has happened to you in life.’

Mr Daglish, who is deputy commercial managing director at ITV, has walked unsupported to the North Pole and South Pole twice, rowed across the Irish Sea and completed the ultramarathon Marathon De Sables as part of his work with the military charity.

Through these expeditions he has ‘seen people have the confidence to know they can try to live a normal life’, adding it is ‘an extraordinary thing to see’.

Mr Daglish believes he may have ‘one more expedition’ in him but will need to seek his wife Emma’s approval because such treks can be dangerous. 

His work with Tommy’s, a pregnancy and baby loss charity that funds research into stillbirth, premature birth and miscarriage, has been driven by personal experience.

His youngest son Felix was born prematurely, suffered a brain haemorrhage and uses a wheelchair.

Mr Daglish added: ‘When Felix was born, he wasn’t healthy. I could not change what happened to Felix but I felt there had to be ways to stop it from happening to other people.

‘It meant that our aim was to raise as much money as we possibly could for Tommy’s to fund research into premature births.’

It comes after Princess Anne proved she’s earned her reputation as the hardest-working royal as she read through a large book of notes on the way to a royal engagement on Wednesday morning. 

The Princess Royal, 73 – who has been dubbed the King’s ‘right-hand woman’ thanks to her reputation for having a busy work schedule – was spotted making an outing in London earlier today. 

Even behind the scenes she was keeping busy as she prepared to meet staff at the Save The Children head office in Farringdon. 

She has been patron of Save the Children UK since 1970 – the first major charity to be associated with the King’s sister – and last month celebrated 50 years of its work in Sri Lanka during her royal tour. 

The Princess was spotted wearing a smart green coat as she headed out in her black Range Rover with surrounding motorcade.

As is expected for royal engagements, she was flanked by police escorts on motorbikes as she headed through the streets of central London. 

The outing makes for yet another event in her very busy diary – being the first royal to return to duty after the Christmas break. 

It follows her busy set of engagements on her Sri Lanka tour, during which she described herself as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the monarchy. 

The successful three-day visit with her husband Sir Timothy Laurence also saw her  carrying some of her bags down the steps of the plane when they first arrived. 

During an interview on the tour, she was asked about her workload and replied: ‘Well, I think in the context of the monarchy it takes more than one person to be able to stay in contact, and we’re part of the eyes and ears.

‘So, as much as possible, we just want to get out and find out what’s going on and help support people who are doing an incredibly good job, wherever they are in the country and that applies here too.

‘You look around here, there are charities here that are well established, and they do a fantastic job and that kind of ethos has to be supported, wherever you find it, so that’s not difficult.’

With King Charles preparing for a operation and the Princess of Wales also out of action after undergoing major abdominal surgery, Anne has been leading the way in attending royal engagements. 

The 75-year-old monarch is currently resting at the 20,000 acre Sandringham royal estate in Norfolk with Queen Camilla. 

On Monday during a visit to Swindon, the Queen told a member of the public that Charles is ‘fine’ as he prepares for the operation this week. 

The day before he had missed a church service near Sandringham, where he had been expected to walk the quarter of a mile from the house to the church, as he almost always does when in his residence at his private retreat. 

There was no sign of him appearing as the bells pealed and the service got underway in the 18th century church where members of the Royal family traditionally worship while on winter breaks.

Buckingham Palace revealed last Wednesday that Charles was due to undergo a corrective procedure next week after being diagnosed with a benign enlarged prostate.

The news came just 90 minutes after Kensington Palace said the Princess of Wales had undergone abdominal surgery and would spend two weeks in hospital. 

Kate is said to be ‘doing well’ after her abdominal operation at London Clinic near Regent’s Park. 

The monarch and Queen Camilla were at his Scottish home Birkhall when they received the shock news, just after it was disclosed that the Princess of Wales was in hospital.

The couple were flown more than 300 miles on Friday on an RAF jet from Aberdeen Airport to RAF Marham before being driven the final 15 miles to Sandringham.

Buckingham Palace shared the news about the King’s procedure just 90 minutes after Kensington Palace said Kate had undergone abdominal surgery and would spend two weeks in hospital.

The King, who acceded to the throne 16 months ago and had his coronation at Westminster Abbey last May, will be admitted to an unidentified hospital.

Camilla revealed last week that the King was ‘fine’ and ‘looking forward to getting back to work’ as she made a solo visit to Aberdeen Art Gallery last week.