When pensioner Len Brittle met the Queen he wanted to burst into song as a band struck up in the background.

But he instinctively knew it was the wrong occasion to let rip into the old music hall song My Old Dutch.

This Wednesday however, the time is right for 73-year-old Len as he takes to the stage at County Hall, Oxford, in a day of celebration for the elderly.

Len, of Pococks Close, Bampton, is one of a handful of selected entertainers who are showing off their talents to mark the end of the county council's Better Government for Older People project.

He is singing a medley of old favourites, including It Had To Be You, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, My Dearest Dear, and the one he nearly gave to the Queen, My Old Dutch.

He and his wife, Olive, were among hundreds of couples invited to Buckingham Palace because they shared the same golden wedding anniversary year as the royal couple in 1997.

"It was a glorious day and I remember that moment very vividly," he recalled.

"Funnily enough, though I'm a Londoner, I didn't start singing until I was 60. When you are young you are too frightened to get up and sing in front of people."

Len joined a local group of musicians, The Entertainers, and now does the odd show for elderly people in local nursing homes.

His pianist Joan Orkney, from The Entertainers, is away in America, so Len is taking a tape of her accompaniment to County Hall.

The event, to be opened by county council chairman Dave Green, the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire Hugo Brunner and Cllr David Buckle, invites older people to share their energies and talents.

During the day, which starts at 11am, there will be performances of folk dancing, blues guitar, line dancing, exercise sessions and a disco.