A Cornish woman who phoned her local pasty shop to place a lunch order had no idea the ever-so helpful member of staff taking it was Britain’s future king.

To add to the hilarity, Prince William misheard the lady after asking her name.

‘Juicy?’ he said, puzzled.

As the shop workers broke out into laughter, he quickly smiled and corrected himself: ‘Oh, Josie! Sorry Josie, I thought you said juicy, my apologies.’

The Duke of Cornwall, as he is known in the West of England, was serving customers at Gear Farm Pasty Company, near Helston, when he picked up the phone.

William had furrowed his brow in puzzlement after asking what name he should put on the order for five fresh and 10 frozen pasties, repeating back to the caller: ‘Juicy?’

After she reassured him and repeated her name, the prince said: ‘The pasties will be juicy, you’re right.’

The woman was due to collect the pasties at 1.45pm, after William and his entourage had left to meet fire and rescue members at nearby Helston community fire station, and was told when she arrived who had been speaking to.

Apparently, she was ‘delighted’ and said she had been ‘quite concerned’ when he misheard her name that she might not get her special order of pasties on St Piran’s Day, the patron saint of Cornwall.

The Gear Farm team gave her the 15 pasties free as a thank you for being such a good sport.

A source said: ‘She said she’ll be telling this story for years.’

The lady later spoke to reporters, identifying herself as Josie Trounson, who lives a 20-minute drive from the farm.

‘I was flabbergasted when I found out,’ she said.’I had no idea who was answering my call, but the person on the line was a bit incoherent.

‘It’s St Piran’s Day, and I was really worried I wasn’t going to get my pasties.’

Earlier during the visit, William met Vasyl Lohvinova, 42, a Ukrainian farmer and refugee who now works on the Gear Farm growing vegetables for their pasties.

‘We are thinking about you all, all of the time,’ William told him and his wife Nadia, 38, and nine-year-old daughter Lyuba.

‘We hope and pray [the war in Ukraine] comes to an end soon.’

William also tried his hand at pasty-making and found the hand crimping particularly tricky.

‘This is not my finest hour,’ he said, as he struggled to fold the pastry. ‘This is where I need my wife. She would be all over this. It’s really not easy.’

The Princess of Wales did not accompany William to Cornwall as Kate, 44, travelled to Leicester for a visit to the city’s ‘Golden Mile’.

The princess was presented with a garland of pearls and roses as she arrived at a community centre which, earlier in the week, had celebrated Holi – the Indian festival of colour, love and spring.

William’s trip to Cornwall came on St Piran’s Day, the county’s national day, and William heard how the community had come together during and after Storm Goretti on January 8, one of the most severe storms to hit Cornwall in recent years.

Winds of up to 123 mph left around 50,000 homes without power, 15,000 without water, and major highways and rural routes were blocked by thousands of fallen trees.

Emergency services and local volunteers worked around the clock to clear debris, restore essential services and protect isolated or vulnerable residents.

One local man in Helston was killed when a tree fell onto his caravan during the evening.

William was told by Helston’s on‑call fire and rescue team about the struggle to remove the 20-tonne tree from the caravan.

‘We did everything we could, but we couldn’t safely get to him,’ one firefighter said.

‘We returned the next day and it took 12 firefighters and three tree surgeons to get to him. It was not a nice thing.’

William told them: ‘Well done guys, good job and hopefully spring is here now.’

Katherine Billing, chief fire officer for Cornwall Fire Service, told him: ‘Then it’s wildfire season, and you’ll be back again!’

William took with him a large box of warm pasties from his earlier visit to share with the crews.

Gear Farm had hoped to share some with them during Storm Goretti but had been blocked by trees on the road.