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The photograph suggests one of the happiest occasions of the week. King Charles smiles as he lays a ceremonial sword on the shoulder of a legend. 90-year-old Billy Boston beams back at him in open-mouthed delight: he’s just become Rugby League’s first knight of the realm… in 130 years that is.
In that time, many other sportspeople have been knighted – not least ten from rugby union: but none from the league code - a historic wrong, said the prime minister, a scandal tied up with snobbery and prejudice, insisted other politicians.

Billy was raised in Cardiff’s docklands just half a mile from this studio, one of eleven children of a seaman from Sierra Leone and a mother of from the local Irish community. He learned his rugby here – union, of course – in a mixed-race team, was spotted by a League scout while doing national service, and is said to have wept knowing that signing professional forms meant that he’d never play for Wales.

But his League career for Great Britain and Wigan was stellar and an inspiration not least for other black players. One of the all-time greats of his sport, he's, won medals and awards galore, features in statues in Wembley, Wigan and Cardiff – but the knighthood many considered his due eluded him, until now; a fitting honour for one described as ‘the most modest of men.’

So where should honour be given? The system comes in for regular criticism from those who reject it on principle, and when it’s seen to be used for political advantage, or as a tool for those who already hold more wealth, privilege and power than might be good for any of us. I hear few criticisms of people getting medals for impressive achievements in medical science, making music which thrills millions, or spending lifetimes in building communities where it’s toughest.

The earliest followers of Jesus were told that they should honour all people simply because they are human beings made in the image of God. He lived it by reaching out to the despised foreigner, the marginalised poor, society’s disreputables and honoured them with the practical care of a message of love, grace and forgiveness.

Some of his closest disciples took a while to get it. The brothers James and John asked that in the coming kingdom, they should be seated in places of honour either side of him. They hadn’t understood, he told them: ‘If one of you wants to be great, he must be servant of the rest’. He’d not come to be served but to serve, he said, and to give his life to redeem many.’

A humility reflected, I think, in the newly honoured Sir Billy Boston.

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