MIKE Dixon chatted with the Queen during a reception honouring Victoria Cross winners.

As one of the last surviving relatives of his great great-grandfather, soldier Dudley Stagpoole, he attended a ceremony, where the Queen, Prince Philip and the Archbishop of Canterbury were also present, at Westminster Abbey in 2003.

Mr Stagpoole was handed the highest award for gallantry in the British and Commonwealth forces by Queen Victoria herself for his bravery in action in New Zealand in 1863.

At the time of the commemorative ceremony, Dixon said: “Everyone knows what it takes to get a Victoria Cross and to have an ancestor given the award is very special.

“We were invited to attend a reception after the ceremony, where I had the chance to briefly tell the Queen about him.

“Everyone was swapping stories about how their relatives had won the Victoria Cross - it was fascinating.”

Dixon was also featured in a Shuttle story in February last year, when he complained of being a victim of anti-social behaviour.

He was furious with a housing association, saying it would not let him pay for landscaping improvements to improve his “quality of life”, as rubbish was thrown into his garden and graffiti daubed on his fence.

Dixon asked West Mercia Housing if he could plant trees and shrubs along the length of a fence on its land but a spokeswoman said it needed to be sure of its legal position in the event of Dixon moving.

Dixon contested a seat for the Liberal Democrats in Kidderminster’s Franche ward during last year’s Wyre Forest District Council elections, coming fourth, with 446 votes.

He has stood for Parliament in the last three general elections, most recently contesting the Birmingham Northfield constituency in 2010, getting 6,550 votes as he finished third, with a 15.7 per cent share of the votes cast.

He also finished third in Birmingham Edgbaston in 2005 and Wolverhampton South West in 2001.

Dixon has also stood, unsuccessfully, for the European Parliament, for the West Midlands constituency, in 2004.

In a letter published in The Shuttle he signed as a member of the Liberal Democrats Police and Crime Working Group in 2002, Dixon said: “I have spent the last two years working closely with law enforcement agencies the length and breadth of the country to obtain not only facts but seek the opinions of the police, courts, probation service, customs etc on what really works in dealing with crime.”