Sarah, Duchess of York has revealed she confronts members of the public who attempt to covertly photograph her when she travels by offering to take selfies with them.

She described an encounter in the security line at Heathrow’s Terminal Four during a recent trip to Croatia, when she said fellow passengers “surreptitiously” took their cameras out.

She said: “So then I go up and say, ‘would you like a selfie?’ and they say, ‘no, no, I don’t know what you’re thinking’.

“And then you feel like ‘oh, so sorry, how dare I presume that you would want a photograph’, when full well they wanted a photograph.”

She recalled the incident in the first episode of the Tea Talks with the Duchess and Sarah podcast, which was released on Thursday.

The Duchess said that in this instance, a woman who “desperately wanted” a photograph was forced to admit as much by her husband.

“It’s the sort of rather chippy woman that was sort of desperately wanting it but wouldn’t dream, once you are there, to say it. But it’s the husband who says ‘oh, go on’,” the Duchess said.

She went on to say she loves “going through airports”, noting earlier in the podcast that she used “normal” terminals, presumably in favour of the Windsor Suite at Heathrow used by VIPs and members of the Royal family.

The new podcast, co-hosted by the Duchess’s close friend Sarah Thomson, promises to “challenge preconceptions” and “set the record straight”.

Ms Thomson, an entrepreneur, described the Duchess as “much misunderstood” by those who do not know her in the debut episode.

She advised the Duchess on how to tackle “self doubt”, advising her to “stand in the mirror every morning” and say “I actually really like myself and I’m good and I’m a lovely person”.

In the first episode, the Duchess also recalled the late Queen asking her if she liked her room in Buckingham Palace after her marriage to the Duke of York.

“I said, ‘oh my goodness, I love my room and there’s loads of mirrors and loads of lavatories’,” she joked to Ms Thomson.

She alluded to the “darkness” of living life in the public eye, and the two friends discussed the fact that they were both “stratospherically sensitive”.

The Duchess said that while she can appear to be “a very courageous public figure… really, I’m deeply sensitive and I mind terribly, and I’m very shy, which people don’t know”.

She added that as a result she overcompensates and was “therefore probably judged for being too loud, or too this, or too that”.

The Duchess said co-hosting a podcast was a “brave move” because often “I’m frightened if I put my head above the parapet that I’ll be shot down in flames”.

Ms Thomson said she was “excited to be sitting down with a cup of tea every week with my incredibly fun, funny and talented friend Sarah”.

The pair will also be joined by guests and share personal insights to questions and dilemmas provided by their listeners.