A woman who claims she is the person the Duke of Sussex lost his virginity to has told of her surprise that he included the detail in his book.

In his controversial memoir Spare, Harry recounted how he first had sex in a field behind a busy pub with an older woman.

Sasha Walpole, who has been interviewed by the Mail on Sunday, said she is that woman and is now telling the story in her own words.

The 40-year-old said she was only going public, having kept it a secret for two decades, because Harry wrote about the episode.

In a video interview she said: “I’ve kept this a secret for 21 years. I would never have said anything if he hadn’t have put it in his book.”

She added: “I’m here to tell my story in my words. I am the lady that Prince Harry wrote about in his book who he lost his virginity to.”

Describing Harry as a “good friend” at the time and someone who was “a laugh”, she said they had shared an interest in horses and her first job as a groom had been at Highgrove.

Ms Walpole, now a digger driver, said a lot of people at the time in their circle of friends would have been aware of what had happened.

She said: “I’m surprised Harry put it in his book. It was such a long time ago, we were teenagers. It just doesn’t really seem a big deal to me because I’ve obviously known for so long.

“Nobody from back then would be surprised that it was me and Harry. A lot of people knew about it.”

She added: “Our lives have gone in different directions since then. If I seen (sic) him in the street I would like to think that we could go for a drink. We were really good friends back then and I wish him all the best.”

In the book, Harry described the event of losing his virginity as an “inglorious episode”.

He recounted how one of the royal family’s bodyguards, Marko, paid him a visit at the end of 2001 when he was still a pupil at Eton College in Windsor, aged 16 or 17, and told the prince he had been sent to “find out the truth”.

Harry wrote: “I suspected he was referring to my recent loss of virginity. Inglorious episode, with an older woman. She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion.

“Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me off to graze.

“Among the many things about it that were wrong: It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub. Obviously, someone had seen us.”

The book reveals that the bodyguard was actually checking up on the young prince because his father, the then-Prince of Wales’s press office had been informed that a newspaper had evidence of him taking drugs, which Harry described as “all lies”.