The late, great Jilly Cooper, author of Rivals and other romps, was queen of the witty one-liner. ‘The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things’: that was one of hers.

She had no time for PC nonsense, either. She once said, ‘I love being wolf-whistled at. I’m that generation. All contributions gratefully received.’ Hear, hear.

She was also great friends with the Queen, Camilla, and the two were very similar in personality. In fact, when you stop to think about it, she – the Queen, that is – could well be a character straight out of a Jilly Cooper novel.

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Upper class but not the sort to stand on ceremony, looks good against a hay bale and – crucially – a lot of fun: that’s the woman Prince Charles married.

I always think of that hilarious piece of footage of the two of them on some official visit watching a very solemn but also (unintentionally) hilarious performance of Inuit throat-singing in Canada in 2017.

While the two female perfumers grunt away in each other’s faces, building to a breathless climax, Camilla struggles to maintain her composure. Poor Charles catches her eye and tries (unsuccessfully) to conceal his amusement by scratching his nose. Eventually the pair of them dissolve into uncontrollable giggles.

Needless to say, it prompted a lot of pearl-clutching in certain quarters. And doubtless there will be of the same since it emerged that, after watching last year’s rather syrupy video of the Waleses frolicking in the wilds of Norfolk the Queen – having first expressed her relief that the Princess’s cancer treatment had been successful – then quipped that it reminded her of a ‘shampoo commercial’.

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Oh dear. The snowflakes will be in meltdown. But really, why? It’s just a joke (remember those?). Besides, wasn’t she (whisper it) just saying what everyone else was secretly thinking?

That bit where the Princess trails her fingers through a field of flowers in a floaty sundress? Just like those soapy Timotei adverts from the 1980s.

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In fact, the whole thing was quite soapy generally, what with all that rolling around in the sand dunes and so on. Very Richard Curtis.

Not that it matters. But it was a funny thing to say. And quite a witty one too. And being the Queen, it wouldn’t have been said to wound, but to amuse. To put people at their ease. To lighten the mood.

I’ll give you an example: I was at the Cliveden Literary Festival the other week. I was working away in my room and, feeling peckish, decided to pop out for a sandwich.

As I was making my way down the corridor, who should I bump into but a burly gentleman with a curly wire in his ear.

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‘Would you mind just waiting here for a second, madam?’ he said politely. ‘No trouble at all, I replied,’ whereupon his ward, the Queen herself – who was leaving having just opened the Festival – turned around and waved.

‘Oh, hello Sarah, she said, how lovely to see you. I really enjoyed your book.’

I must confess I was slightly blindsided (as was the gentleman with the wire). I’ve only encountered the Queen a few times in social settings, and that was a long time ago, before she was Queen.

She could very easily have ignored me, and I wouldn’t have thought any worse of her for it: she is, after all, the Queen.

Instead, she was utterly charming: warm, witty, welcoming. As she was to everyone that day. She made us all feel special, relaxed and at ease, not because it’s her job (it is also that) but because that’s just who she is.

She is very good at taking the hot air out of stuffy situations without deflating anyone’s ego.

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That’s why she makes the King, who can have a tendency sometimes to be a little maudlin (and frankly, who can blame him), so happy. She knows how to diffuse a tense situation with a dash of humour.

Like the late Jilly, she is possessed of an irrepressible joie de vivre. So what if it’s laced with a rather delicious streak of naughtiness? At the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?