By introducing padding, she says: “You’re altering your perspective on how hard you can hit someone else and how hard they can hit you.”

The decision to make mainstream sports safer has also had the knock-on effect of encouraging young people “for whom risk-taking is part of their DNA” to “find a really much more dangerous sport to do”, she says.

The Princess reveals how she visited a skateboarding park in Corby, Northants, and was surprised to discover wearing helmets was not compulsory: “I thought that was interesting because it makes it their responsibility.”

Asked if she is worried that children are too often labelled “disadvantaged” to their own detriment, she says: “I get really cross now if I get loads of statistics and I get the terminology – oh, they come from this area, which is deprived, this area which is below poverty level.

"And I think, hang on a minute, you’re condemning a whole group of people to saying they’re all in special needs, because they come from there. I think we have to be really careful.”

She adds: “Statistics can be useful, but be very, very careful about why they’re asking that question. And the reason most of these guys are asking that question is because that’s where their grants come from.”

She says she is alarmed at children being written off because of their background. “Just give them the right opportunities,” she says. “Don’t label them – oh, it’s unlucky you’ve come from there so you’ve got no hope.”

She added: “In all big cities you tend to get areas which focus more on arts and crafts and theatre – but that doesn’t apply to everybody.

"It’s just the way – like Tetbury is full of antiques shops. Why do you all want to be there? It’s a mystery to me. But it doesn’t mean to say that everybody who comes from Tetbury is an antiques dealer.”

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