The Man who sat on THE QUEEN'S BED

NO-ONE WILL FORGET WHEN MICHAEL FAGAN CLIMBED INTO THE QUEEN’S BEDROOM TO TELL HER HIS PROBLEMS! HERE’S OUR INTERVIEW FROM 1992

- Len Adams

Michael Fagan, a man forever destined to be a Trivial Pursuit answer, has never come to terms with the spotlight that has glared down on him since he broke into Buckingham Palace and woke up the Queen. One minute he was a face in the crowds. Next, his name was on everyone’s lips as he made headlines around the world.

Since that fateful day in 1982, the lines on his face have deepened, his circumstances have changed, but it’s clear he still hates the limelight.

“It’s a nightmare,” moans Michael. “It seems there is nowhere I can go without some joker asking me if I’ve heard from the Queen.”

The story began at 11.15 on the night of June 7, 1982, when the slightly-built man scaled the Buckingham Palace railings, causing the biggest security scandal the nation had ever known.

Ignoring “fail-safe” security devices, he climbed a 15m drainpipe, climbed in through an open bedroom window, and terrified a housemaid who had earlier been to a séance.

As she raised the alarm, he slipped into the corridor to look at some paintings lining the walls. In a store room, he found a bottle of wine, which he opened with a pair of scissors.

Michael hadn’t come to rob. He had come to see the Queen. She would listen to his woes, he thought, and miraculously come up with some answers.

“I was depressed,” he recounts now. “I had a lot of debts, I was out of work and my wife had left me and taken the kids. I had so many things on my mind.”

After taking a swig of the palace wine and wiping his mouth, he cautiously peered round the door, but hurriedly drew back when he saw a policeman with a dog.