Dickie had 29 meetings with the monarch and they became firm friends.

He said: “I had a letter from her a fortnight before she died… She’d write pretty regular… Her secretary did the letters and she’d sign them… it was so nice. She were the rock of this country.”

The Yorkshireman, 90, said his MBE and OBE “mean more to me than my life” and described his greatest moment was being invited for lunch with the Queen in 1990.

He said: “I got the early train from Wakefield and I arrived at the gates of Buckingham Palace at 8.45am.

“My appointment was at 1pm so I sat in a little coffee shop for four hours. The Queen laughed when I told her and said, ‘You had better have a drink’.

READ MORE Queen’s cousin-in-law quietly picked up job after quitting royal role

“Prince Edward joined us, we had a magnificent lunch, and then it was just the Queen and I in the lounge all afternoon.

“She had a lovely sense of humour. We talked about cricket and horse racing. She said, ‘We think the world of you and we think you do a good job’.

“That were the best day of my life.”

• Advert-free experience without interruptions.
• Rocket-fast speedy loading pages.
• Exclusive & Unlimited access to all our content.

Source: Read Full Article