Once again it is going home time for the unlucky ones who haven’t made it into the finals of The Voice or Britain’s Got Talent.

Like them, I craved fame as a youngster and my heart goes out to them in their time of torment.

Luckily a most lovely lady thought I was the face she was looking for as she searched through a crowd of hopefuls way back in 1962 for a cigarette commercial she was casting.

The advert was only seconds long but was on so often that I was amazed to find, getting on a crowded bus the morning after its first showing, I was immediately surrounded by passengers clamouring for autographs.

A couple of people jumped off at the next stop, which happened to be outside a tobacconists, before hopping back on with a couple of packs of the said cigarettes for me to sign.

There’s more: later that day coming back down from London I found myself (to my delight) being pursued along the platform by two lovely young ladies requesting my company for dinner that evening.

This touch of the celebrity life was becoming more pleasurable by the minute.

I find these recent evenings so heartbreakingly harrowing as the hopefuls are cast aside, so uncontrollably shattered and tearful. I don’t know who is the most tearful, them or me, as I reach for more tissues to dry my eyes.

On a happier note, I am delighted to see the new “electronic cigarettes”, which can be smoked anywhere.

Although I have not touched a cigarette for 40 years, I am now hopeful some enterprising casting director might engage me for an advertisement for the electronic version.

Michael Parker, Oakdene Cresent, Portslade