It was all rather confusing for poor Mrs Lilian Hickson. She was speaking on the telephone against the din from the television and trying to talk to her eight-year-old son, John, at the same time.

So it was natural she got somewhat flustered – and to cap it all, her conversation was being overheard by millions of TV viewers all over the UK.

Mrs Hickson, 46, of Durrants Drive, Croxley Green, was the unofficial star of “Hot Line”. BBC1’s latest panel “game”, on Saturday night.

The idea of “Hot line” is that the victims are connected by a direct telephone link to David Jacobs, in the chair, so they can ask “Any Questions”-type questions to a distinguished panel.

Mrs Hickson, mother of three, was one of the questioners on Saturday night. But she came unstuck.

“It had been a very dull programme up until when I was called,” she said this week. “And when I was on the phone I couldn’t hear a thing David Jacobs was saying. I didn’t realise everyone could hear everything I was saying and I called to John and told him to shut the door so I wouldn’t be distracted by the laughter from the TV.

“And it was me causing the laughter! Everything I said had everybody in fits.

“After the programme, the BBC rang up several times to tell me how wonderful I was – but I never heard if anyone answered my question.”

Mrs Hickson’s question was to Peter Ustinov, and it was: “Do men who grow beards have an inferiority complex?”

[From the Watford Observer of May 21, 1965]