An Oxford couple have remembered with fondness the time Prince Philip stayed with them in their mud hut in Africa – and even left them a gift of lemons to go with his royal-crested tonic water.

In 1985 zoologist Stephen Cobb was working for the WWF and International Union for the Conservation of Nature and he and his wife Alison were living near Timbuctoo in Mali.

They had built a mud-brick house on the sand beside the Niger river, with no running water, no electricity, no refrigerator and no beds. 

Prince Philip, who was then 64, was president of WWF and vice-president of IUCN and was travelling around West Africa, visiting various local projects.

Mr Cobb was setting up a research and development programme for the two organisations in the face of a serious drought stretching across Africa.

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The couple, who now live in Binsey, were warned that Philip would visit but they had no spare bed.

Mrs Cobb recalled: “It was a massive struggle   getting twigs from a place where most forests were sacred, and rawhide that did a splendid job of tightening up the twig furniture, but that everyone wanted to eat, and millet mats to lie on took a month to acquire.

“We had to capture the bed manufacturer by force and bring him a day’s journey by canoe to our house and keep him there and feed him till the work was done.”

The couple then went to buy a mattress in Mopti and tried them out by lying on them in the road, attracting startled onlookers.  

One month before the prince’s visit his detective, Brian, stayed two nights with the Cobbs and was amazed by the bathroom arrangements which largely consisted of a huge plastic mug for pouring the water over yourself.

Mrs Cobb said: "Two very large toads lived quietly in the dampest corner.  The lavatory was across the yard and was open to the skies with a hole in the centre leading to the tank below.

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“I asked the detective if he could bring me a Union Jack that we could hang up outside to show it was occupied. Prince Philip later asked what the Union Flag was for, and Brian explained.”

Brian warned the couple that the Prince did not suffer fools gladly, that he was a strict timekeeper but that he would put up with almost anything.

Mrs Cobb said: “Brian was convinced he would never have seen a lavatory like ours.”

On his arrival a splendid suitcase labelled HRH Duke of Edinburgh was brought in to the Duke’s bedroom, which was actually the couple’s, while they slept on foam mattresses on the sand.

Mrs Cobb said: “The suitcase was opened and it contained a bottle of brandy, of vodka and of whisky, lots of tiny tins of soda water and tonic with a royal crest, and a row of beautiful lemons  - Mali is so hot that lemons will not grow there.”

Prince Philip apparently showed huge interest in Mr Cobb’s project, asked good questions about sacred forests and firewood and how raw rice was not edible, but cooked rice meant cutting down forests. He was energetic and went everywhere with Mr Cobb on foot.

In the evening the couple held a dinner party for about 60 people and Mr Cobb divided the guests into those with guns or revolvers, and those without.

Mrs Cobb said: “Prince Philip sat with his friend Harry Hambledon and said how nice lamb roasted over an open fire is, and would we excuse him for going outside to see it being cooked?

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"Three times during that meal he went out to our courtyard to look at the cooking pits, each time saying to 20 struggling staff in his perfect French that he knew that wherever he went he was a nuisance, and caused a frightful lot of work, and he was sorry about it.”

When it came to his leaving, Prince Philip himself piloted an HS147 of the Queen’s Flight.

She said: “Moving on to the airstrip at Mopti, he opened the aircraft window and shouted out 'Mrs Cobb? I did not have time to say it on my way to the airport, but thank you very much indeed, for all the trouble you took, giving us a splendid time.' And away he flew, in a cloud of hot dust.

“When I got back I went to our bedroom to tidy it, and there on the table by the bed were six lemons.”