Prince Charles’s egg-eating habits revealed by royal chef

As Prince Charles and his wife Camilla (pictured with Carla Bruni) met with President Sarkozy at the Elycee Palace yesterday ahead of the Armistice commemorations, his former cook, Mervyn Wycherley, offered further revelations about his fussy eating habits.

Wycherley, who worked for Charles and Princess Diana for 13 years, is selling a cache of 50 letters written to him by his former employers through a firm of auctioneers based in Colchester, all of which show a warmer side to the Wales's early married years. However, it is his account of the Prince's particular attitude to how his eggs should be boiled that has attracted attention.

Said Wycherley: "The Prince always used to have his tea between 4pm to 5pm. In particular, he liked to have his boiled eggs with crumpets when he got in from hunting. His eggs had to be boiled for exactly four minutes. It was never anything other than a four-minute egg. His detectives radioed his ETA ahead, so I always kept three pans boiling - just to be safe.

But the cook was quick to point out that he found a way of exploiting the Prince's profligacy: "There was never any waste from the other two pans, however, because we always used to carry on boiling them into hard-boiled eggs for salads."

Wycherley also recalls how the princess craved bacon sandwiches when she was pregnant with both Princes William and Harry. In one note she writes: "To Mervie, please could I have a bacon sandwich for breakfast and a much-needed rest from our friend the tomato! D."