When Prince Harry lost his virginity to an “elderly woman” in a field outside a pub, it marked the end of a close two-and-a-half-year friendship that saw the couple take radically different directions.
Sasha Walpole, 40, a digger operator from Wiltshire, revealed last night that she was the mystery woman referenced in the Duke of Sussex’s memoir Spare – but described a close friendship with the prince that grew out of a love they shared horses arose.
After a birthday party the night before Ms Walpole’s nineteenth birthday, the pair had their quick rendezvous behind the pub in Wiltshire before going their separate ways and never speaking to each other again.
Now Ms Walpole has lifted the curtain on her old boyfriend Harry, who she says was 16 at the time, and revealed the secret she’s been keeping for 21 years.
Sasha Walpole, 40, is a backhoe operator and horse lover from Wiltshire – a world away from Prince Harry’s glitzy life in California
Mrs Walpole (left) and Prince Harry (right) were in a group of friends who bonded over horses when they were teenagers
Ms Walpole met Prince William before she ever met his little brother – at a comedy night with the late Cornish comedian Jethro at the Beaufort Hunt Kennels.
She had recently started as a nursing assistant at Highgrove when she was just 17 years old.
She then became friends with Harry at one of his favorite pubs, the Rattlebone Inn, in the nearby Wiltshire village of Sherston.
They bonded over their love of equestrianism and stories of their antics on their own horse, Beano.
After meeting at The Rattlebone Inn, she was soon invited to the Princes’ room at Highgrove, where the then-Prince Charles had given them a chill zone.
Ms. Walpole fondly remembers boisterous nights playing games like Spin the Bottle.
When the Prince first called her on the white push-button landline telephone wired into the wall at home, it was Mother Lyn who answered.
Prince Harry was pictured meeting some of his friends including Sasha (circled) in June 2001.
Prince Harry married Meghan Markle and moved to California, a world away from Wiltshire
A younger Sasha Walpole dressed up for a polo ball around the time she was befriending the princes
‘Mum said, “Harry’s on the phone.” After that she asked: “Was that HARRY?”. I said yes!” and I remember her saying, “Oh, how funny.”
Her close friendship with Harry grew out of a shared understanding: “In the horse world, everyone was equal.
“Our group was a very mixed group of polo players, grooms, hunters and racers, a cosmopolitan crowd.
“It didn’t matter if you were a groom, a royal, or a horseman. There was no judgement.
“Harry didn’t act like a prince, there was no snobbery. To be honest we were just two buddies talking about horses.’
But their friendship ended abruptly when a brief cigarette break turned into a romp in a field — and they never spoke to each other again.
Ms Walpole was hired as a Nurse Assistant at Highgrove in 1999 at the age of 17
Sasha Walpole is now happily married to husband Ian, a drift racer, and has two young daughters
“He started kissing me,” she recalls. “It was passionate, intense. We both knew. It went from a kiss to the floor pretty quickly.
“It was instant, fiery, wham bam, between two friends. It was sparkling because we shouldn’t have. He wasn’t “Prince Harry” to me, that was Harry my friend and the situation had gotten a little out of hand. I suppose it felt naughty in the sense that it wasn’t supposed to happen.
“We didn’t intend to do that – it wasn’t intentional and I didn’t know he was a virgin. There were no virgin vibes – he seemed to know what he was doing. It was fast, wild, exciting. We were both drunk. It wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t.”
She recalled seeing him hiding in a phone booth as she left the pub for home – and the encounter marked the end of Sasha’s friendship with Harry. The two never wrote, spoke or saw each other again from regular drinking partners.
After the encounter, Prince Harry returned to Eton to continue his studies and she prepared to leave home after applying for prestigious grooming jobs as part of a plan to pursue a career with horses.
But tragedy struck with the arrival of foot and mouth disease in the UK. Her job opportunities vanished and she decided to follow her father’s path instead, trading her car for a one-ton excavator instead.
When Prince Harry left school and pursued a career in the army while enjoying the luxuries of royal life, she dug holes in some of England’s most rural areas.
The Vine Tree Pub, Norton, Wiltshire, where Prince Harry had sex with Sasha Walpole in a field, which the Duke sensationally revealed in his bombshell memoir Spare
Ms Walpole is now a mother of two daughters and digs foundations for patios and driveways as part of her daily life.
While Harry married American actress Meghan Markle, Sasha settled on professional drift racer Ian Walpole, whom he first met in 2001 before marrying in 2016.
It was Ian who bought her her first digger as a birthday present.
She said: “Now I drive a one ton motor that goes through doors and a three ton motor too. I also have two dumpers.”
While she and Mr Walpole moved an hour up the road to settle in Wiltshire, Harry and Meghan moved halfway across the world.
In recent months, Prince Harry has been very busy with the release of his memoir, Spare, and the Netflix series Harry and Meghan.
His father’s coronation is fast approaching and there’s no sign of the rift between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family ending.
Meanwhile, Ms Walpole, her mother and sister have kept their secret a secret for more than two decades and have enjoyed a life outside of public scrutiny – until now.
Regarding Harry’s revelations, she says: “To be exposed in a book is surreal. I’m here at my home in Wiltshire with my husband Ian and my children and – 21 years later – this.”
“I don’t think people will be amazed that me and Harry are having sex in a field,” she says bluntly, “but they’re usually amazed when a woman drives a backhoe.”
It says a lot about the happily married mother of two – congratulations – that she’s kept her secret for so many years.
And it says a lot about teenage Harry – good, too – that he initiated a two-and-a-half-year friendship with a girl outside the so-called Glosse Posse of wealthy, blue-blooded youths who made up his social circle in rural Gloucestershire.