Along a lonely corridor, I stumbled into Queen Elizabeth II. Her white gloved hand was on the handle of a small door. When I started to engage in conversation with her majesty, she interrupted me quickly to say that she really didn’t have time to chat. It was only then that I realised that we were standing outside a lavatory. I left her to it.

Later I related my royal encounter to my friends.

‘That must have been Princess Anne’, one remarked. “Remember, Queen Elizabeth is dead’.