Coughing Camilla gives up smoking

by MICHAEL SEAMARK, Daily Mail

Much to her partner's delight, Camilla Parker Bowles has finally given up smoking.

Prince Charles's companion, who previously puffed away at 10 a day, put away the cigarettes for good two or three months ago.

'It wasn't so much me giving up smoking, rather smoking giving up on me,' she told one friend.

Mrs Parker Bowles said she had been suffering from rhinitis, an allergy that causes irritation in the eyes, nose and throat which is more commonly known as hay fever during the pollen season.

'She had a persistent cough which she couldn't shake off,' said the friend. 'It wasn't connected to her smoking but she decided it was a good opportunity.

'She's been trying to give up for as long as I have known her but this time she's given up for good.'

Earlier this year Mrs Parker Bowles, 53, went on a trek to the Himalayas to 're-energise' her spirits and encourage her to give up smoking. She was in a party of 12 accompanied by the Prince of Wales's favourite health guru, Dr Mosaraf Ali.

Mrs Parker Bowles has become a regular visitor to Dr Ali's London practice where she has been encouraged to take up yoga both to combat her back pain and to help her give up smoking.

She is not the first woman in Charles's circle to be addicted to tobacco. Former royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke's constant smoking so annoyed the Prince that he would banish her to the roof of St James's Palace to light up.

She used to clamp a cigarette between her teeth as she sped down the ski slopes.

Prince Charles, who prefers those around him not to smoke, experimented himself as a schoolboy but gave it up almost immediately.

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