The excitement was raw: every single one of us would have 30 minutes or so to chat with a royal couple! My friend found out first that hers was the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Mine was Diana, Princess of Wales and her ten year old son Prince William.

My allocation did not make sense. How could I be sitting at a table playing a video game with the ten year-old version of the grown man seated with my friend across the room, and his dead mother?

It was then that I realised that we’d been tricked. These members of the royal family were no more regal than anyone else. They were hired lookalikes.