Mr Fields survived a stabbing and attempted shooting while growing up in London and acknowledged that it would have been easy to fall on the wrong side of the tracks.
He said: “In terms of my self-confidence, my self-belief, sometimes we look at it and call them soft skills, empathy and patience, and understanding and communications skills – all these things played a part in me making the right decisions at the right time, and arguably I learned those and developed those in scouting.”
The Princess remains out of the public eye as she continues her chemotherapy treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. In a personal statement released in June, she said she had “good days and bad days” but was “not out of the woods yet”.
She went on to join the Royal family for Trooping the Colour and was last seen in public at Wimbledon in July, when she watched the men’s singles final alongside her daughter, Princess Charlotte, before presenting the trophy to Carlos Alcaraz.
The Princess, who was a Brownie in her youth, was named joint president of the Scout Association in September 2020.
She shares the position, her first presidency of an organisation, with the Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent, who has been president since 1975.