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SJA President receives knighthood from Queen


Broadcaster – and President of the Sports Journalists’ Association – Michael Parkinson was today invested as a knight of the realm by Her Majesty the Queen at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Sir Michael and the Queen exchanged anecdotes about the recent wedding of her grandson Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly, who works as the broadcaster’s personal assistant.

“She asked me what I thought about the wedding and told her I thought it was glorious, a wonderful, wonderful, occasion. We talked about that wonderful church, that chapel, St George’s Chapel in Windsor, and I told her that I enjoyed it, who wouldn’t?”

He said he left the wedding party at the same time as the Queen at around 10.30 pm complaining, “I’m too old now”. It was his first Royal wedding, but he had failed to dance with the Queen, he added.

He did not think that his new status would lead to his newly wed personal assistant calling him Sir Michael. “She calls me everything but Sir,” he said.

Click here for a video clip of Sir Michael’s investiture on the BBC website


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