I MUST admit that when it was announced that the Olympic Torch would be touring the UK ahead of the Olympics this year I groaned.

Why would anyone want to see someone who they didn’t know carrying something for something they wouldn’t be going to see?

I asked myself what was the point. Which idiot came up with the idea?

But as the relay got closer and I saw it on TV I became entranced by it, so much so I and my family ended up being part of the throng which turned Westbourne Road into a sea of people on Sunday.

We found a spot where we could just see the road, saw the bus with the runners on, saw the sponsor buses and then managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the flame.

Then did what everyone else around us seemed to do, namely sigh ‘Was that it?’

I now realise in hindsight that whoever came up with the idea of the torch relay is a 24-carat stone cold genius.

Why?

They managed to tap into the British psyche to an extent that most folk flogging stuff would kill to be able to do again.

How?

Easy. They knew we liked queuing and also being slightly underwhelmed but thinking ourselves grateful.

The British love of queuing is well documented. We all know that if you put a rope up, someone will wait at one end then we’ll all file in behind them. We won’t be sure what we’re waiting for, but boy, we’re just thrilled there’s something that someone else would even contemplate worth waiting for at the other end.

However, the torch took that to a whole new level. Imagine if you weren’t in a shop but a street – and there’s no rope.

The good people of this town took to it with aplomb. Let it not be said that Huddersfield doesn’t have some of the best queuers in the country.

Lines of people all neatly arranged spreading down the pavement. They next lot filed in behind them. It was a fantastic sight to behold – the true Olympian ideal.

Plus if anyone dare put a foot out of line or even momentarily appeared to have the temerity to show signs they were thinking of not queuing and, I can hardly bring myself to say it, push in, then woe-betide them.

The Spanish would waggle a finger, the French would discard their Gallic shrug and tell you straight and the Brits?

Well, if it was a couple the woman would turn to the man and say, in a voice just loud enough to be heard by the people concerned: “I don’t know why we bothered getting here for 10am if people are just going to push in.”

The man, slightly embarrassed would look around and sort of do enough to be seen as agreeing. If that didn’t shame the people into moving then the Weapon of Mass Destruction would be deployed.

Forget chemical or nuclear weapons, a northern woman’s tutting would have the same effect.

The queue jumpers can now be in no doubt. You can count to 10 before the ‘tutage’ gets too much and they must move. No-one can brazen out a full-frontal tutting.

After the torch had passed and we streamed away from the route, you could hear people saying: “Well, it was okay, but I’d like to have seen more of the torch.”

This is the jackpot for us. We can now say to our friends we saw the torch but then add a pregnant pause before outlining how little we saw of it.

This anti-climax is perfect for Britain. We’re not America. In the US they’d have had majorettes and a jet fly past then everyone would have had a go of the torch before it was ceremonially blasted into space, thus confirming America’s perceived supremacy.

Can you imagine that over here? “Here Mavis, how much diesel are those planes using? They should have done it on a transit, I tell you. Up the spout my tax, up the spout.”

People would have been terrified of touching the torch lest they dropped it on someone’s foot and Claims4U got involved for a bit of compo. Then, invariably, an over-freshed teenager would have been waggling the torch about before slinging it onto the top of a bus stop and someone would have had to fetch a ladder.

Maybe we can get synchronised ladder erection located at a minor transport interchange into this year’s Olympics?

Come on Huddersfield, we can go for gold!