Sir Billy Connolly awarded honorary degree days after knighthood
The ‘little boy who didn’t do his homework’ has received an honorary doctorate from Strathclyde University.
Sir Billy Connolly has received yet another honorary degree despite joking the closest he got to university “was to deliver coal”.
The Big Yin became an honorary doctor of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, just days after he was given a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Wearing a suit, bow tie and red graduation gown, Sir Billy stopped for photographs outside the Barony Hall and asked: “Do I look smart?”
He said: “It’s a bit special, I must say. It’s becoming quite overwhelming.
“I’m wondering if they know something I don’t, you know?”
The comedian, singer and actor joked: “When you start getting the lifetime achievement stuff you think, ‘wait a minute’.”
The honorary degree is the fourth the former shipyard worker has received despite rarely setting foot in a university.
“The only time I was at university was to deliver coal,” Sir Billy said.
“I delivered some publications here (Strathclyde) when I was a messenger for John Smith’s Bookshop but that’s as near as I ever got.
“I’m the little boy who didn’t do his homework.”
Laughing, he added: “I think if I had got a degree I would hate me – if I was sitting there having worked my bum off, to see this lout going up to get a degree for nothing.
“My wife has a Phd and she frowns on these. She doesn’t really approve. It’s nice, I like to take it in the mood it was given to me.”
In 2013 he revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and prostate cancer on the same day, but he has since been given the all-clear from cancer. Asked how he was feeling on Thursday, Sir Billy said: “I’m okay. It comes and goes, you know.”
Clutching his degree scroll beside daughter Cara, he added: “It’s absolutely wonderful, it’s hard to describe. When I was first offered these kind of things I wanted to refuse but then I thought it was kind of churlish. I think it’s lovely.”
