Being presented to the queen is one of the greatest honours a loyal Briton, like me, can be awarded, and I almost made it once. It was July 2002, and Her Majesty was making a tour of the country in celebration of her Golden Jubilee. In Yorkshire she was entertained at Harewood House, the home of her first cousin, the then Earl, to lunch, followed by an open air concert featuring a number of local performers, including Richard Whiteley, Mel B, of the Spice Girls, the Leeds West Indian carnival and the Huddersfield Choral Society. The soprano, Lesley Garrett, sang ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, from My Fair Lady, backed by a group of promenading Heydays members, of whom I was one.

Each performing group was asked to provide one member to be presented to Her Majesty, in the way of the Royal Command Performance, or whatever it’s called these days, and I was chosen. Alas, it was not to be. The crowd pressed so much that the queen beat a hasty retreat, and the presentations were abandoned. I had to make do with a conversation with Richard Whiteley, who amazingly remembered me as a Countdown contestant some twenty years earlier.