Tom Hennigan, Times correspondent in Argentina, reports that people in the village near Prince Harry's polo ranch flatly deny rumours that he has been behaving like a tearaway.

"There is only one small bar in Salvador Maria, and what seemed like the village's entire male population - about 25 people, aged five and upwards - was either in it or near it when I arrived to ask about Prince Harry's exploits, luridly reported in the Argentine tabloid press.

"It is to this tiny establishment, where beer is served at a cardboard counter and which boasts two tables, a couple of card schools and a venerable pool table, that Prince Harry came on two or three occasions. It is far from being a nightclub, or thronging with beautiful Argentinian girls.

"I met Mariano Arivalo, who works on the estancia where Harry is staying. He told me that he had partnered the Prince for a few games of pool against two other men.

"'Harry came to the bar two or three nights with his bodyguards,' Mariano told me. 'He didn't give them the slip. He only had two or three beers, and he left before midnight. All that stuff the papers printed about him being a hard drinker is rubbish. It casts a shadow over our hospitality. He is a good pool player, though.'

"I could feel the hostility in the bar towards the press over what had been printed. Argentina has a scurrilous press that makes the hardest-nosed English tabloids look as sober and judicious as The Economist. The tabloids said that Harry was breaking out at night, running away from his bodyguards, rolling back to the estancia drunk and causing problems, provoking local police to complain to the British embassy. The embassy flatly denies this is true; so does everyone in the bar.

"The owner told me that people felt bad, because Harry was a guest in the neighbourhood, and everything that had been printed about him was lies.

"'Harry is a nice guy, everything was tranquillo when he was here,' he said. 'There was no problem at all. We were very happy to have him.'

"The only other places in the vicinity to party are in the small farming town of Lobos, about ten miles away. Here there is one nightclub, el Cubano, owned by Jonathan Castellano, which opens one night a week on a Saturday.

"There are only three other proper bars in Lobos, and they only open two nights a week, on Friday and Saturday. From Sunday to Thursday there is nowhere to go to live it up.

"Mr Castellano told me that he had not seen Harry in his club, and that the other bar owners had not seen him either. He said: 'This is a small, friendly town. Everyone knows everyone. News travels fast and we haven't heard anything.'

"A Lobos cafe owner told me that Harry came in once for a coffee, but that he just sat talking quietly with his friends. The owner of the local taxi company said he hadn't seen the Prince.

"This farming community is used to the presence of Europeans, who flock to learn and practise their polo skills on local ranches between October and March. Some of the estancias are actually owned by English families.

"As I was leaving the bar in Salvador Maria, three young English guys came in. Immediately they bristled at the presence of someone from Fleet Street. In Salvador Maria people just shrugged and said the Europeans were no problem.

"But people in Lobos believe that the gossip about Harry might have started because of a group of foreigners went into one of the bars there and were noisily getting drunk. Argentinians went up and chat to them - it is a local custom - and they were joking on that one of them was Harry. Maybe that started the rumours.

"One man whispered that perhaps it was the local police who rang the papers with the story to make a bit of money on the side. If that was true, the tabloids would be happy to run with it.

"As for the stuff about the kidnap plot, I was very suspicious when I saw that only Pagina 12 had run the story. The newspaper has a large political axe to grind, and a track record of running unsubstantiated stories with a political angle.

"Pagana 12 said that the plan was to kidnap Harry and cause an incident to embarrass the provincial governor.

"This would not be an anti-British story but more of a grubby, local agenda, relating to internal government in-fighting about how to handle the security crisis and string of kidnaps in the Buenos Aires area. I can't say for sure, but my gut feeling having lived in Argentina for several years is that this will turn out to be without foundation."

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