Knighthood bid for quiz host Parsons
USUALLY the process is c onducted in hushed tones behind oak-panelled doors. But in the case of TV veteran Bruce Forsyth, his knighthood was bestowed after a very public online petition, which drew 15,000 signatures, and a parliamentary Early Day Motion signed by 73 MPs.
Now, I can reveal, there is a growing, equally public, demand for the Queen to confer a ‘K’ on another entertainer even older than Sir Bruce — the gentleman quiz show host Nicholas Parsons.
Grantham-born Parsons, 90 today, is still working as the smooth anchor of Radio 4’s Just A Minute. So when 300 family and friends gathered to toast Nicholas’s landmark at a champagne party at the Hyatt Churchill Hotel, Marylebone, the honour was on guests’ minds.
As MC Gyles Brandreth invited Parsons, who was appointed an OBE in 1994, to make a speech, a roar went up from his pals: ‘You mean Sir Nicholas.’
For, intriguingly, I can reveal a campaign to secure a knighthood f or Nicholas i s under way. It transpires that Admiral Sir John Treacher, former Commander of the Fleet and a long-time friend, has quietly been canvassing friends in high places and asking them to approach St James’s Palace to suggest Parsons’s name for the gong.
Says Brandreth, who has known him for 44 years: ‘Nicholas is unique. He is the longest- serving broad- caster in the world. And because Just A Minute is heard all over the world, he is a wonderful ambassador for British broadcasting.
‘He deserves a knighthood for his good manners alone. He is the personification of courtesy and charm.’
Businessman John Ratcliff, who was also at the bash, tells me: ‘I got a letter out of the blue from Admiral Treacher, which basically said it was time to try and have Nicholas’s OBE upgraded. I couldn’t agree more.
‘I understand that various other friends were also approached and all the letters have been sent in an envelope marked To Whom It May Concern at St James’s Palace, where these things are considered.’
Dad’s Army co- creator Jimmy Perry, also 90, who generously paid for the champagne downed by Tuesday’s guests, tells me: ‘Of course I support a knighthood for Nicholas. I know it would please him.’