Facing the final curtain...

Bauble on hold....

Back in the Dark Ages, I used to work as a journalist for the Central Office of Information. The COI, a successor to the wartime Ministry of Information, was dissolved in 2011, for which I accept no personal responsibility having left the organisation 30-odd years earlier.

Coincidentally, though, it is one of many enterprises to have gone to the wall following my involvement, including, but by no means exclusively; Radio Aire, Real Radio, Yorkshire Television (apart from Emmerdale), the Sunday Correspondent, Jazz FM, TV-AM, local newspapers (more or less), BBC local radio (ditto), and British Aerospace rugby league coverage.

(Have fun Googling that one. Pre-Sky, the aeronautics giant thought it might steal a march on other tech firms and get in early on satellite television and all the riches that would surely follow. Hilariously, live Second Division rugby league was part of the plan. I can find no mention anywhere of my commentaries. The company seems to have buried this short inglorious period in its history as carefully as you might a conviction for public loitering).

Forgive me, for lapsing into All Our Yesterdays mode, but it was the editor of Forty20, the half-decent rugby league magazine for whom I write a monthly column, who sent me down that particular rabbit hole by mentioning that I might want to devote a sentence or two in this month's missive to Sir William John Boston's knighthood, scandalously the first ever rugby league player - or landlord of Wigan's Griffin Hotel - to be so recognised.

Billy's honor is heartwarming news in a naughty world, I think we can all agree, and a cause for celebration even for those of us who boast a lifelong cynicism about the honours system.

In my case, some of that stems from my time at the COI, where my boss, for no discernible reason, appeared in the honours list one year as an MVO (Member of the Victorian Order). Unlike Sir Billy, notable for a career terrorising defences at home and overseas and later dispensing good cheer to the thirsty of Wigan, my chief of staff, when he bothered to attend his capacious office, spent his days doing the Times cryptic crossword and putting golf balls into an upturned tumbler.

The only time he snapped into action was when a royal visit was in the offing, and then he made sure he was suited and booted in the presence of anyone he suspected might have the honours' committee's ear.

Only through my personal experience of the chap did I know how unmerited his minor bauble was, but I have often suspected that those among the wines and spirits at the foot of the honours list may, like my boss, have been honoured simply because it was their turn.

Example: scrutinize the lists in your morning newspaper thoroughly enough and you will often find someone being recognised for forty or fifty years service as a lollipop man or woman.

This has always puzzled me, because near my home we have a crossing attended by a lollipop person but also controlled by traffic lights, so the lollipop wielder only steps out into the road when the light is on red, and then leads the children across.

Are we saying that were it not for the giant lollipop shaped warning, drivers would simply ignore the red light and plough through groups of schoolchildren?

My argument is - and apologies if I have aired this here before - these lollipop people should have to stop the traffic in the fast lane of the A1 (M) before we start handing out honours to them.

There are those who feel the rot set in on October 26, 1965, when the Beatles went to the Palace to collect their MBEs, but I obviously spurn that analysis, having widely advertised here and elsewhere my view of Paul McCartney as the Greatest Living Englishman.

Quite apart from their contribution to the gaiety of nations, the group's work correcting our balance of payments deficit was immeasurable.

As I recall 1965, if it were not for the Fab Four, the only things we would have been selling around the world was the odd E-type Jaguar, Mary Quant's short skirts, and those tartan tins of biscuits decorated with a photo of the young queen and her corgis.

By the way, at the end of the summer, I shall be calling time - not altogether voluntarily - on a more than 40-year career in British broadcasting. Obviously, given my vaguely republican sympathies and suspicion of the system as a whole, I am not looking to become a Member of the Victorian Order, whatever the hell that is, but some sort of mild recognition, maybe for services to ill thought-out and failed business plans would be nice.