When you've had a great idea, there's always someone who'll come along and say, "You can't do that!"

According to her, it was an overbearing bureaucrat from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

She says they sent a total of three different officials to variously put on spacesuits to inspect her hen-house, gave her a lesson in how to clean and weigh an egg, “poked around” her home for six hours and asked her what products she used to clean her kitchen.

Why? Because the Viscountess wanted to sell her surplus eggs in the Cerne Abbas village shop.

The story gets even more ridiculous when you learn that Viscountess Dilhorne’s day job is as a professor of microbiology and she generally goes by the name of Professor Susannah Eykyn.

“It seems remarkable that to sell a few eggs in the village store I have to be subjected to this nonsense,” she observed.

But health and safety gone mad isn’t confined to teaching a microbiology professor how to clean eggs. According to a national newspaper, Britain’s bobbies are about to get whacked with a 93-page document telling them how to ride a bike.

“The barmy booklets costing thousands of pounds were drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers” claimed the Sun.

Only ACPO says they weren’t. The police chiefs’ union said the guidance was “neither requested or drawn up by ACPO and we do not endorse it.” A spokesman for Dorset police said they wouldn’t be introducing the guide because of this.

The fact this story spread across Britain like wildfire shows how willing we are to believe any health and safety gone mad tale.

Only last month, keen Blandford recyclers David and Katie France were ordered to return home from their local recycling centre, to which they’d walked on foot, and return by car. The reason?

“Health and safety,” said David. “I can only assume we might have got run over by a car had we entered the tip on foot.”

Dorset County Council verified the story, claiming the tip didn’t have a “pedestrian access point’. “If residents walk with waste from their home they will be allowed access on foot but will be advised against it on safety grounds,” a spokesman intoned.

In Devon last week, Ilfracombe Rugby Club held its “virtual bonfire” – a blaze on a giant screen, accompanied by crackling effects and giant heaters to warm those who thronged to the evening.

This was billed as a health and safety issue but according to club president Paul Crabb: “We all sat round discussing the pros and cons of a bonfire, the idea of a virtual fire was thrown in and everyone thought it was a great idea.”

Virtual bonfires, clowns barred from wearing comedy shoes, children forced to wear goggles to play conkers or a pensioner told he can only place one bouquet at a time on his late wife’s grave “in case gardeners tripped over them” – there’s a never-ending stream of health-and-safety-gone-mad stories. And no one is madder about these stories than the Health and Safety Executive itself, which feels unfairly blamed. On its website there’s a Myth of the Month where an attempt is made to countermand stories which give newspapers such excellent front pages but, it seems, with little positive effect. So why are we so willing to believe these stories are true?

A spokesman for the HSE said, she couldn’t say. “I can’t tell you why people are willing to believe stories that are not true,” she said. “We try and put the case across that we’re responsible for health and safety at work, we’re not responsible for people’s own health and safety, where they’re going about their business.”

She says the executive promotes a “common sense approach” and that “we have loads of information on our website about health and safety and risk assessment, so people can take a common sense approach”.

She explained the virtual bonfire had been blamed on the HSE but added: “There’s no health and safety regulation which says you can’t have a bonfire.”

Is it the fault of insurance companies, then?

“I can’t comment on insurance premiums because it’s inappropriate for a public body to do that. Sometimes we get blamed but when you look at the story it’s the fear of compensation – even though the compensation culture itself can be a bit of a myth.”

She also pointed out the Association of British Insurers had signed up to the HSE’s common sense crusade.

So is it annoying for the HSE to be blamed when things go mad?

“I don’t think annoying is the right word but it does detract from the real issue – that 180 people died at work last year and thousands have been injured.”

Back with Viscountess Dilhiorne’s eggs, a Defra spokesman said: “Whether you’re supplying half-a-dozen to a local shop or thousands to a supermarket, food safety is important to people buying them. They have a right to know where their food comes from, that it’s safe and if they become ill after eating it, the food can be traced back.”