Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick has recalled his awkward dinner encounter with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace.
The Channel 4 star told how he had a broken leg and had to pass his crutches to the right because he was sitting beside her.
Speaking on RTE Radio One on Monday, Noel, 51, said: “As I do so the man pushing in my seat hesitates for a moment and, as a result, I lurched forward almost ending up in the Queen’s lap. I put my foot forward to break my fall and, in so doing, kicked her handbag under the table”.
The Laois man said they both reached down to pick up the handbag, their heads almost touching.
He cheekily said to the Queen, “I said it could have been worse, your majesty, I might have turned up with no trousers.”
Earlier he revealed how he had to get a tailor to put a zipper in the side of his suit trousers so he could get them to go over his broken leg, what he then called his John Travolta leg.
The tailor told him he couldn’t possibly have them ready in time, but when he told him he was having dinner with the Queen they managed to turn it around.
Prof Fitzpatrick was in Dublin on Monday to promote his book, Listening to the Animals: Becoming the Supervet.
The animal lover told the Ryan Tubridy Show how he decided he wanted to become a vet after he had to save a newborn lamb on the family farm in Ballyfin.
In 2005 Fitzpatrick Referrals opened in Eashing, Surrey, where Noel and his team use ground-breaking technology to save the lives of animals.
Channel 4 Supervet star Noel Fitzpatrick rescues lost swan from busy Dublin road
One former patient was Oscar the cat, who became the first animal to receive two bionic leg implants in 2009, earning the telly vet a Guinness World Record.
Prof Fitzpatrick said he trained with three “fantastic” vets in Ireland and has great belief in apprenticeships.
“If you want to be really good, you have to eat a pile of humble pie and listen to mentors who have learned at the coalface and then bury your ego – it has no place in an operating theatre.”
