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-          and many happy returns to Her Majesty the Queen on her ‘official’ birthday.

I’ve been blessed with relatives who reached ninety and know how wonderful it is to celebrate their lives and achievements amidst the joy of children, grand- and great-grand-children. May it be a happy day.

I was brought up grateful to Great Britain. Through the heroic actions of Robert Smallbones, British Consul in Frankfurt, my mother and her family came here in April 1939, refugees from Nazi Germany. When they landed at Croydon Airport a policeman smiled at them, - a very different experience from the Gestapo. Here in England they felt free to be themselves.

My rabbi, Louis Jacobs, described how his elderly teacher climbed the steep roof of the seminary to raise the Union Jack. When his students chided him for risking his life, he explained: if you’d lived in Czarist Russia you’d also scale the roof to fly the flag of freedom.  

Many institutions besides Royalty uphold the liberty of this country: Parliament, a free press, an independent judiciary and a culture which shuns extremism and, at best, not just tolerates, but celebrates, diversity.

Through her long reign Her Majesty has represented the ideals of service and responsibility across the world, in innumerable public duties, and through devotion to charity, faith and peace. These values have enabled Jews, alongside those of all faiths, to create communities, practise our religion and contribute to every aspect of life in this land. Such opportunities must never be taken for granted.

So I say with gratitude, may Her Majesty be blessed with many years of health, happiness and peace.