Billy Connolly and his kids tricked tourists by hiding behind the sea wall in the west coast fishing village and jumping out whenever anyone passed by.

Not far from the tricksters we tried to park our metallic green mark 4 Cortina next to an identical model in silver in which two children were sleeping. However, the car refused to cooperate with our plans. Each time that we thought we had it locked in position it folded in on itself and fell over flat on the grass. Our only option to keep it upright was to leave it unlocked.

By the time we reached Billy Connolly and the kids (after all the performance parking our car) they had packed up and in their Land Rover about to drive home. Billy Connolly wound down his window to speak to us and I asked if I could take a photo of him. He agreed, even though he had no real intention of posing for a shot, then drove off laughing.

In the meantime someone had stolen our unlocked Cortina. By now it was 7pm on a Saturday night and the only place open in the village was the shop. We asked the owner where we could report the theft. According to local custom you could only report a crime when the Queen was in the vicinity, and she wasn’t due back in the village until March 2014.