Graham Carter - the voice of age and experience

YOU wait ages for a member of the royal family to come along, then two come along at once!

For the first time in my life, last year I got to meet one of them. And then, last Thursday, it happened again.

The first time was a year ago, when the Duke of Gloucester was in town to help commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, at the last of a series of events I helped to organise, so I got to shake his hand.

This time it was the Duchess of Cornwall or – to give her her proper name, because she is a real person, as I can now confirm – Camilla.

My continued involvement in all things to do with local history got me on the hand-shaking line once again, and also meant that for a couple of hours I got to mix with even more people, than a lad brought up in a council house in Meadowcroft, ever expects to rub shoulders with.

At one stage there were three of us in a group, chatting, and it was only later that the thought struck me that I was the only one in the group who isn’t a lord.

Also present were not one but two Members of Parliament, a mayor and some captains of industry, including captains of some very big ships indeed.

Now, anybody who has ever spoken to me about the royal family will tell you that I don’t really agree with everything they stand for, but because I am a reasonable chap who acknowledges people when they mean well, work hard and do a good job, I have nothing against most of them personally.

I could have confessed my royalist reservations to Camilla, but I could equally have told her that her husband has been my favourite member of the family, ever since August 17, 2011.

That was right after rioting in Tottenham, when all the politicians were – pardon my French – sitting around on their fat asses, saying what should be done to solve the problem, but Charles got off his – not that the royal ass is fat – and went straight to Tottenham to ask the local people what they felt had caused it.

And, come to think of it, Camilla went too.

So I was also happy to discover that, as we all lined up to shake her hand, she stopped for a proper conversation with every single person, even me.

This threw me off balance because I had rehearsed a shorter speech that went: “Hello and welcome to Swindon,” but she wanted to know more about Swindon’s heritage.

We had been told to address her as ‘Your Royal Highness’ or ‘Ma’am’ (to rhyme with ‘jam’), but fortunately there was no call for that, and I now doubt very much whether she really approves of that sort of thing.

As there are a lot of people in this country who do their jobs extremely well - from millions in the NHS, downwards - we shouldn’t dwell too much on how well the royals do theirs.

We all have our jobs to do.

But it is worth dwelling on your experience when you find that somebody you wouldn’t normally get to meet and you expect to be quite cold, turns out to be a warm person.

Camilla’s visit to Swindon will be remembered by me for a long time, but a newly-wedded couple she spotted at the Civic Offices will remember it even longer after she broke with protocol and her schedule and – to her credit – took it upon herself to gatecrash their photos.

So thank you Ma’am (to rhyme with ‘jam’).