In a rare address to mark her diamond jubilee, the Queen urged everyone to embrace their neighbours, 'even if they live a good half hour's walk away, like mine.'
In a ceremony at Westminster Hall, the Queen said: 'It is my sincere hope that the Diamond Jubilee will be an opportunity for people to come together in a spirit of neighbourliness and celebration of their own communities.
'Just the other day, I realised I hadn't seen my neighbours in 40 years. I just drive past them in my Rolls Royce most days, without a thought as to their wellbeing. But as I saw one of my neighbours' children badly injured on the pavement last week, I got the driver to stop, and wound down my window to enquire as to the poor child's condition. As I drove away, leaving the child there, I felt all citizens of the UK should act in a neighbourly manner, like me.'
The Queen went on to say she can't 'even see my neighbours' homes from the palace, but I can just about make out a shape in the distance if I stand at a certain point of the East Wing.' But, she added, 'you've got to draw a line somewhere - I can't just have my neighbours walking on my land. We don't allow any old riff-raff to mark their muddy boots on my territory. My my, that would be quite inappropriate.'
Denise Wilson, a nurse from Swindon, said: 'If the Queen wants to come and live in my ground-floor flat, underneath a family of four who have two dogs and a DJ set, when she has to wake at 2am to go to work, she's more than welcome. Then she can see that most people's neighbours are actually loud, insensitive pricks.'