Camilla knew Clarkson before the lunch. She 'invited' him to write a column for the magazine "Country Life" when she was guest editor. I watched the 'documentary' on the making of that edition, because not knowing much about Camilla other than the scandal that surrounded the marriage of Charles and Diana, I wanted to know a bit more about her.
From Wiltshire Live July 2022. About the documentary.
"Charles is picked by his wife as her leading countryside champion and she has penned an article about him, while Jeremy Clarkson, former Top Gear presenter turned famer, is also been recognised by the duchess and features in the programme and magazine.
The broadcaster, friends with Camilla and her son the food writer Tom Parker Bowles, has become an unlikely campaigner for the farming industry after starring in the Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm, which follows his attempts to grow crops and look after livestock on land he owns in the Cotswolds.
The duchess says about Clarkson: “He made people realise how difficult farming is – I think some people see farming as cows sitting in the meadow on a beautiful day and they don’t realise the work and the difficulties that are behind it.” Camilla’s public image has been transformed, from being cast as the third person in the Prince and Princess of Wales’s marriage to a campaigning member of the monarchy prepared to serve the nation."
Clarkson has noted elsewhere that when he smoked he had, at occasions, had a sneaky cigarette with Camilla.
All this many months before the luncheon.