‘We hope it can inspire young people from backgrounds like ours’: Ant and Dec have been honoured with OBEs

NATIONAL TREASURES Ant and Dec received OBEs for their contribution to television at Buckingham Palace on Friday morning. 

It caps off a wonderful week for the pair as they had already picked up three prizes at the National Television Awards on Wednesday, including the TV presenter award for the 16th year in a row.

The duo  were given their awards individually from the Prince of Wales.

Speaking after being reunited following the accolade, McPartlin said: “It’s normally me that goes first and when they called Dec’s name I thought ‘I’ll watch what he does’.

“Twenty minutes apart, it’s a long time … it was weird.”

He added: “It’s a huge honour.”

The Britain’s Got Talent presenters were accompanied by their wives – Lisa Armstrong and Ali Astall – to the event and said they would celebrate with a “small glass of champagne” and take their families to lunch.

Donnelly said he hoped receiving the recognition would “inspire” youngsters from working-class backgrounds.

He said: “You don’t expect things like this to happen to lads like us from the west end of Newcastle so it’s a huge honour.

“We’re humbled and honoured and ecstatic about the whole thing.

“We hope it can inspire young people from backgrounds like ours that things like this do happen to us sometimes.

“Put your head down and work hard and you can achieve what you want.

“You can end up in Buckingham Palace.”

The pair have already spent a considerable amount of time with the Prince of Wales after interviewing him for a documentary celebrating 40 years of the Prince’s Trust.

When receiving his award, McPartlin said Charles had joked “you survived the documentary then”.

Donnelly added: “It was nice that he was giving us the award today, having spent so much time with him and having followed him around.

“I think we wore him down in the end so it was nice to see him today and nice to get our honour from him.”