Countryfile star reveals his biggest blunder with royalty

WHEN greeting a member of the Royal Family, tradition states that men must bow, from the neck only, and women do a small curtsy.

But it was not so for presenter Matt Baker who, preparing to interview the Prince of Wales on Countryfile, loudly reproached his esteemed guest after mistaking him for a rambler.

The BBC host revealed his embarrassing blunder during a talk at Countryfile Live in Oxfordshire.

Speaking to the audience yesterday, the presenter recalled the royal as a “proper farmer’s man” when he guestedited the show to mark its 25th year.

He said: “We were filming before he turned up and I was doing some pieces to camera as a little introduction… I see these blokes who were in the back of the shot for ages and we were like, ‘Guys, get out of the way, we’re filming – we’re waiting for Prince Charles to come over’.

“Who was it? It was Prince Charles. He had walked the whole way… and we were giving him the heave ho about getting out the way.”

Baker is arguably one of the corporation’s busiest men, claiming to work on 14 different programmes at any one time, including The One Show and Countryfile. But the hectic schedule does little to prohibit his rural life. He still spends every morning with his farm animals – among them a few Hebridean sheep with an illustrious past.

Baker said: “We went and did a bit with Prince Charles a while ago and we run Hebrideans in our farms as well as Hampshires and he has got a really lovely flock of Hebrideans.

“I started chatting to him about them and I said, ‘You haven’t got any for sale by any chance?’ and he was like, ‘Yes, why not? Let’s do a deal’ and so I did a deal with him there and then.”

But sailing has not always been so smooth for the broadcaster, who recounted a near-death experience while filming a hang-gliding world record attempt for Blue Peter.

“I was about 2,500ft up and I got caught in a thermal and just carried on going up and I drifted away from the airfield – I went into survival mode,” he said.

“It was an unbelievable shock as I drifted over a motorway, I lift my legs up and a lorry goes underneath. I landed at a grass verge at the side, half in a tree.”