Doncaster woman's joke with King Charles as she receives MBE at Windsor Castle

Prison educator Lynne Wade, who received the honour from the late Queen Elizabeth II in the 2022 New Year’s Honours list, cracked a joke as she met the monarch at the glittering event.

She said: “The King was very interested in my long and dedicated service and mentioned the duration of my career in the prison environment.

“Yes, about three life sentences worth Sir,” I told him.

"The King laughed aloud at that. After a chat, he thanked me for my service and congratulated me on the honour.”

And it wasn’t Lynne’s first brush with royalty.

Last summer she attended the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Service at St Paul’s Cathedral, where she ended up chatting with Prince William, then the Duke of Cambridge.

She said at the time: “We were fortunate to be with a group of people chatting with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, but we didn’t have a one to one chat with her. However we did chat with Prince William and his equerry which was just the icing on the cake.”

Also joining them were former prime ministers such as Sir John Major, Gordon Brown, Theresa May and Sir Tony Blair along with current politicians such as Sir Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson.

62-year-old gran Lynne has dedicated her working life to improving the life chances of generations of young offenders and has worked at Lindholme, Moorland and Hatfield prisons.

Lynne, who lives in Thorne, started her lengthy career teaching in schools and further education colleges in the 1980s and then special needs schools, devising a series of courses for them.

She went on to create further education classes at Lindholme Prison and began teaching at Hatfield Young Offender Borstal.

She has helped those who never excelled or even attended school regularly in childhood and those with learning difficulties come to enjoy learning and feel treated like students and not prisoners while in her classroom.

Lynne helps with their English even though she is not their language teacher determined to bring out the best in the most difficult of students, helping one pass exams who had previously been removed from class for being disruptive but she allowed him back in to continue learning.

She is still involved in education and in her spare time she offers feedback and assistance to examination boards and she is also on a focus panel for the Samaritans. Both activities are on a purely voluntary basis.

She added: “It was a wonderful occasion and great to meet up again with some of the honours recipients who attended the Platinum Jubilee Service in June last year.”

“A doctor I chatted with said we will all get together again when we are awarded a damehood!

“I have treasured memories I will keep forever and it was wonderful to share the day with my daughter Elly, mum and best friend.”