We were all invited to Grey Gables for New Year’s Eve so I didn’t think it would make much difference if we arrived a day early. Surely Peggy Woolley wouldn’t mind?

We walked past the gardeners who were planting up flower beds to cheer up the borders around the house in readiness for the party. Once inside we looked for a suitable bed for the night. All four of us – me, JGT, JGT’s brother Rhys (who I had mistakenly been calling Eric most of the day) and my sister-in-law SG – squeezed in under the bobbled cotton sheets, where we managed a reasonable night’s sleep. We were delighted that nobody had noticed us – or so we thought.

The next morning all four of us were arrested by Special Branch. Our crime: endangering the monarch’s life. Our only defence was that had we known that the Queen was in residence at Grey Gables, we would have kept well away.