The Duchess of Cornwall buried her sister’s teddy bear in a garden as a child and only admitted to the misdemeanour decades later, a new documentary has revealed.
Camilla was followed for a behind-the-scenes ITV programme, Camilla’s Country Life, while she guest edited Country Life magazine to mark her 75th birthday.
The hour-long insight, made by Spun Gold TV and award-winning director Michael Waldman, shows the duchess inspecting the final proofs of the special edition and carrying out her royal duties around the UK.
Camilla admits to the challenges of personally penning an article about the Prince of Wales for the magazine.
“It’s not easy to write about your husband.
“I bit through several pencils,” she remarks.
The documentary-makers also accompanied the duchess and her sister Annabel Elliot as they returned together to Hall Place, previously the Hampshire home of their grandparents.
It emerges in the show that Camilla buried her younger sister’s beloved teddy bear, known as “Tiddy Bar”, in the grounds and only confessed many years later.
The duchess remarks: “Yes, Tiddy Bar, he had a very happy resting ground.”
Annabel jokes: “I’ve not forgiven her, it still rankles to this day.”
The pair recall rolling down the hills, catching butterflies in jars and dressing correctly for their strict grandmother, as they chat about which of the furnishings they each now have in their own homes.
Camilla adds: “I could find my way around here with my eyes shut.”
Some of those closest to the duchess also appear in the programme, which will be broadcast on July 13.
Her friend Sarah Troughton, a first cousin once removed of the Queen, says of Camilla: “She’s certainly not a prude.
“She’s got a wicked sense of humour, risque as well as naughty, and that’s what gives her her charm.”
Camilla and Charles were also filmed as they prepared to leave for the State Opening of Parliament in May, the historic occasion when the prince stood in for the Queen at the event for the first time.
The duchess was followed to Manchester where she met survivors of domestic abuse, an issue she has long campaigned on.
She says of her drive to fight domestic violence: “The countryside is not all roses: there are darker things happening.
“So anything I can do to help, it’s been a taboo subject for too long.”
On guest editing Country Life magazine, the duchess says: “It’s quite hard work but I’m loving it.”
Camilla commissioned the Duchess of Cambridge to take her photograph for the front cover.
Kate, a keen amateur photographer, captured a smiling Camilla looking relaxed in a blue and white floral dress and cardigan, sitting on a bench with a trug filled with pelargoniums, ready to be planted.
Another picture by Kate appears on the leader page and is an informal shot of Camilla walking through forget-me-nots at her country home, Ray Mill House in Lacock, Wiltshire.
She bought the six-bedroom property, less than 20 miles from Charles’ Highgrove, after her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles in the mid 1990s.
The duchess turns 75 on July 17.
Country Life edited by Camilla will be published on July 13.
The Camilla’s Country Life documentary will be shown the same day at 9pm on ITV.
