Some of my earliest memories are of attending a family get-together in west Kent to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.

It was more remarkable as it was with the side of the family who were, by and large, staunch anti-royalists.

Yet, as it was a special occasion; barbecues were lit, beer flowed and us young kids (who, just for clarity, didn’t drink that beer) put on Union Jack hats and got into the spirit of it all.

A few years later, I was in London – coincidentally – the day before the royal wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981.

I can remember walking past people camping along the route the ‘happy’ couple were to take; endless shops with flags and every conceivable Charles and Di branded tat for sale.

While my parents tutted at why anyone would want to do that (and they had a point), you couldn’t help but be swept up by the excitement of it all.

When I became a parent, we took our kids to see the boats go down the Thames for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (despite the appalling weather) and even got lucky and snagged some tickets to last year’s Platinum Jubilee concert outside Buckingham Palace.

Which is an impressive line-up of royal events to lay claim to; except of course, I would say that my views on the monarchy and, in particular the members of the royal family, range from boredom to, at best, indifference. When I was a teenager they were considerably less than that.

Yet there is no denying that in this often divided nation of ours, the Windsors do provide a point of coming together. Not necessarily in their honour, but an opportunity to use the key moments in the life as an excuse to let our hair down or reunite.

They’re a bit like the way Blue Peter used to have pets – so that those children who couldn’t have their own could share in the highs and lows.

The royals provide us all with a faux arm of our own families who we don’t think about normally – or, for that matter, particularly like - but who know how to throw a decent party and always invite us along. They were just as prone to saying stupid – or offensive – things as misguided members of our own, real, clan.

And, like all family get-togethers, you cannot help but think of those who we’ve lost along the way.

If I cast my mind back to the fragments of memories I have of that party in my aunt’s garden in Tunbridge Wells in 1977, so many of my family have since passed on; cherished grandparents, uncles, aunts, even cousins.

It was a moment in time in what seems like an eternity ago.

But at least the Silver Jubilee brought us all together for one, extra, family occasion. And for that it’s hard to be anything but thankful.