I have managed, with very little effort, to survive a year of two royal funerals and one golden jubilee without ever experiencing any of the emotions that the tabloid newspapers regarded as the mark of loyalty and patriotism. But today I feel a profound sympathy for the Princess Royal. Until yesterday, the mention of her name moved me only to resentment. I was at the Oval in 1950 when David Sheppard was so distracted by the public address system's, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a little princess", that either Ramadhin or Valentine (that year the two great West Indian spinners were interchangeable) bowled him next ball. But now Anne and I (suddenly the familiarity seems natural) are united by a passion greater even than that which I feel for cricket. Dogs. And not any old dogs. Dogs which get their owners into trouble. Legal trouble. The comparison is not exact. I was convicted under the Royal Parks Act when my Buster killed a goose. The Princess Royal remains innocent until she is proved guilty (under the Dangerous Dogs Act) of failing to prevent her Eglantyne from taking a nip at a lady who was walking in Windsor Great Park. And, as you would expect, Eglantyne is a pure English bull terrier while Buster, like me, is a mongrel. But one thing we undoubtedly have in common - our mothers' sympathy.  When my mother - then aged 93 - was telephoned by the Sun with the news of my disgrace, she suggested (in Buster's defence, not mine), "It was probably a game that went wrong." The Queen's view on these matters was revealed to me by Charles Anson, Her Majesty's official spokesman and once my private secretary in the Foreign Office. We met outside Buckingham Palace on the day that my case came to court and he assured me, "Your sovereign is on your side. She prefers dogs to geese any day."  I do not suggest that the Queen feels the same about the relationship between dogs and people - though, in her declining years, my mother constantly quoted Jeanne-Marie Roland, the French revolutionary: "The more I see of men, the better I like dogs." But the Queen does, I know, hold strong views about the Dangerous Dogs Act. She expressed them to me with great force and passion during the lunch that preceded the opening of the Birmingham International Convention Centre 10 years ago. I share her criticism of that silly legislation - introduced in a fit of panic by Kenneth Baker and supported by a craven House of Commons (me included). But it is important to keep its proposals in proportion.  The proportions of the Princess Royal's dogs do not put them in the category that the police are entitled arbitrarily to impound and the courts empowered to have destroyed - except in the most extreme circumstances.  Do not worry, Your Royal Highness. Eglantyne is safe. As Harold Wilson once told a rebellious Labour Party, "Every dog is allowed one nip." If they had any sense, the wounded Windsor walkers would agree and drop the charges.  I hope that the police were as courteous to the Princess Royal as they were to me. I was accosted with a great deal of unnecessary show - lights flashing and siren wailing as the patrol car followed me down the street. But afterwards they were supportive to the point of telling me that I should not let the thought of prosecution spoil my weekend. A warning would be the worst that would happen. (Six weeks later I read in the newspapers that the police had misjudged the director of public prosecutions' intention. When the crown prosecution service telephoned to apologise for not telling me first, they explained, "There's been so much publicity, we couldn't do anything else.")  Assuming that, like me, the Princess Royal is not willing to be separated from her dogs, Her Royal Highness is going to find the press attention near unbearable. It was the simple idiocy of the photographers and reporters that drove me to fury. For days they followed Buster and me around in the hope that he would once again pull his lead out of my hand and find another goose to kill. When I suggested to them that, from then on, the price of Buster was eternal vigilance, they always smiled vacuously. I hope, as well as suspect, that Princess Anne will treat her tormentors more severely.  Of course, she will not go to court herself. A solicitor will appear on her behalf, as one appeared on mine. I pleaded guilty, though I did contest the prosecution's version of events. The incident had occurred while I was "picking up" - an activity involving plastic bags which is best not described in detail. As I bent down, Buster jerked the lead from my grasp and bounded off into the bushes at the Whitehall end of St James's Park. The police alleged that he was "off the lead". I insisted that we explained that Buster was never off the lead. I was. My solicitor calculated that my attempt at humour would cost me another hundred pounds.  Despite the anguish of the weeks between offence and conviction - every passing policeman was assumed to carry a death warrant in his pocket - we did well out of the affair. Buster's Diaries is the only bestseller we have ever had in our family. The Princess Royal will benefit too. A nation of dog lovers will remember Eglantyne's one nip and forget her mistress's many snarls.