Maybe it’s my age, so help me here: whenever the role of the BBC in British life is mentioned, am I the only person who is instantly transported back to hundreds of happy memories?

Blue Peter, The Magic Roundabout, Camberwick Green…

It was always there in the corner of the room, like some smiling, knowing, friendly member of the family. They didn’t call it ‘Auntie’ for nothing.

My parents were keen on the wireless - keener than us - but the BBC was still, to them, as comforting and as homely as an armchair.

Jimmy Young, Jimmy Clitheroe and Sports Report.

The Six O’Clock News was there, too, defining the world with reports from Biafra, Belfast and Buckingham Palace.

Some people loved their school days, but not me, and if I had to choose the highlight of the whole of my education, it was probably watching the 60 dots disappear from the clock in the last minute before we were excused from proper lessons and sat down to watch a BBC Schools programme.

While we waited for girls to be invented, we fell in love with BBC comedy, sport, drama and, to be honest, most other things they put out.

Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python and Dad’s Army; Wimbledon, Test Match Special and A Question of Sport; Dr Who, Colditz and I, Claudius; It’s a Knockout, Parkinson and University Challenge.

Then there was a Magical Mystery Tour of music in which the BBC premiered The Beatles on radio and telly, nurtured the 1970s new wave and - if you liked that sort of thing - played Proms.

Top of the Pops, John Peel and Live Aid.

Even today, when we occasionally and reluctantly tune in to newfangled big budget corporations like Netflix and Disney+, there is still a big place for the BBC in our house and our hearts.

QI, Would I Lie to You and anything with David Attenborough in it.

And then there are all those things that the BBC do that pass me by, from the World Service to CBeebies, and Radio 1 to Call the Midwife - a programme I loathe, to be honest, but I’m married to someone who adores it.

They are all priceless. And locally?

In every one of my encounters with anybody from BBC Wiltshire over the years, what has always struck me is their cool professionalism.

And notice that thousands in Swindon still call it BBC Wiltshire Sound, a kind of local version of ‘Auntie’ - which tells you a lot.

So it’s particularly sad whenever anybody attacks the BBC, especially when the best reason they can come up with for wanting it gone - or admit to - is it’s not perfect. But that won’t wash with those of us who have worked out that, actually, nothing in the world is perfect, least of all huge organisations. But it’s close enough.

And it’s certainly no reason to turn a national institution and an international beacon into a political football.

Sportsnight with Coleman, Cup Final Grandstand and Match of the Day.