Royal family friend Dame Shan Legge-Bourke dies aged 82: Former lady in waiting to Princess Anne and whose daughter Tiggy was nanny to William and Harry passes away

The aristocratic mother of Prince William and Prince Harry‘s childhood nanny Tiggy has died at the age of 82.

Dame Shan Legge-Bourke was a friend of the Royal Family and was herself a lady in waiting to Princess Anne. 

She was born the daughter of William Bailey, the 3rd Lord Glanusk, and went on to be at the forefront of public life in mid Wales for many decades.

Dame Shan’s ‘devastated’ family announced her death last night, saying she passed away peacefully at home. 

Paying tribute, they said: ‘We are devastated to lose our mother. 

‘She was an inspiration to us all, and to many people she met over her years of service to Wales, and the countless organisations and institutions she supported.

‘A country girl at heart, she has left an indelible legacy at Glanusk, the wider countryside and beyond.’

When they were boys, Prince William and Prince Harry were regular visitors to Dame Shan’s 18-000 Glanusk estate on the Welsh border. 

Prince Harry greets Tiggy Legge-Bourke’s mother Shan in April 2010 in Wales 

Dame Shan is pictured in the 1980s when she was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne 

The then-Prince Charles arrives at Zurich Airport with Prince William, Prince Harry and their them- nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke for a skiing holiday

She inherited the property from her father following his death in 1948 when she was just five years old. 

Dame Shan has long been a friend of the Royal Family. However, their ties became strongest when her daughter became nanny to Prince William and Prince Harry after their parents divorced.

Tiggy even controversially called the young princes ‘my babies’ and took them to her parents’ estate.

Tiggy was a personal assistant to Charles III (then Prince of Wales) from 1993 to 1999. She has used her married name since her marriage to Charles Pettifer in 1999.

Dame Shan held a multitude of public roles in Wales, including Lord Lieutenant of Powys and chair of the Brecon and Radnor Country and Land Association. 

She was also High Sheriff of Powys, President of Save the Children in Wales, President of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society and the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs.

Dame Shan Legge-Bourke was a friend of the Royal Family and was herself a lady in waiting to Princess Anne

Shan Legge-Bourke accompanies Queen Elizabeth II as she visits Glanusk Estate in 2012

Dame Shan also held an extraordinary number of patronages and presidencies of organisations in Powys, including being honorary colonel of the Infantry Battle School in Brecon, Governor of Christ College Brecon.

Under her leadership, the Glanusk Estate diversified from being dependent on agriculture to renting properties, hosting weddings and shoots and more recently the Green Man festival.

She was the focus of a four-part television documentary created by BBC Wales called the Lady of Glanusk in 2006.

In it, the then 63-year-old mother-of-three and grandmother-of-seven was seen climbing onto the roof of her home to clean the gutters, plucking pheasants with her grandchildren and sorting out the electrics.

‘She can drive a tractor better than any man I’ve ever seen and can reverse it through a narrow gap with a trailer on the back of it,’ said her daughter Zara.

In the documentary, she put her skills and hard-working nature down to a ‘wonderful’ childhood in which her mother would encourage her to get involved in all aspects of the estate.

‘From a really early age I was encouraged by everyone on the estate to be able to put my hand to whatever I could, whether that be searching for eggs, picking raspberries or sitting in the tractor,’ she said.

Prince Harry greets Tiggy Legge-Bourke’s mother Shan in April 2010 

Queen Camilla and han Legge-Bourke visit Ysgol Penmaes, a specialist school for children with learning difficulties in 2012 

She also described being sent away to boarding school. She said: ‘I got sent away to boarding school at the age of 12. 

;She [her mother] sent me to the furthest-away boarding school she could find in Sussex so that I couldn’t run away – that was awful. I was so homesick.

‘I can remember literally standing in Abergavenny station waiting to go back to school with the tears streaming down my face.’