Ant and Dec hope their OBEs will inspire working class kids

The TV hosts collected their fourth gong of the week as they receive OBEs at Buckingham Palace this morning.

The pair had already picked up three prizes at the National Television Awards (NTAs) on Wednesday, including the TV presenter award for the 16th year in a row.

Despite building their career based around being a partnership, they were separated briefly as went up to receive their awards from the Prince of Wales, under their real names Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.

Speaking after being reunited following the accolade, Ant said: "It's normally me that goes first and when they called Dec's name I thought 'I'll watch what he does'.

He added: "It's a huge honour. Twenty minutes apart, it's a long time ... it was weird."

The Britain's Got Talent presenters were accompanied by their wives to the event and said they would celebrate with a "small glass of champagne" and take their families to lunch.

Dec said he hoped receiving the recognition would "inspire" youngsters from working-class backgrounds.

He said: "You don't expect things like this to happen to lads like us from the west end of Newcastle, so it's a huge honour.

"We're humbled and honoured and ecstatic about the whole thing.

"We hope it can inspire young people from backgrounds like ours, that things like this do happen to us sometimes.

"Put your head down and work hard and you can achieve what you want. You can end up in Buckingham Palace."

The pair have already spent a considerable amount of time with the Prince of Wales after interviewing him for a documentary celebrating 40 years of the Prince's Trust.

When receiving his award, Ant said Charles had joked: "You survived the documentary then".

Dec added: "It was nice that he was giving us the award today, having spent so much time with him and having followed him around.

"I think we wore him down in the end so it was nice to see him today and nice to get our honour from him.

"It has been the most surreal week. Honest to God. It's just bizarre. Like we're on cloud nine and don't know when we're going to come back down to earth.

"In fact I know when it will be - it will be tomorrow when we're back with Simon Cowell doing Britain's Got Talent auditions."

The pair joked that they were going to show the OBEs to Cowell as "he hasn't got one".

Responding to reports that they may withdraw themselves from the NTAs, McPartlin said: "As long as they want to keep voting, we're there", before joking that The X Factor presenter Dermot O'Leary might have started the rumour.

And asked if they would fancy presenting the Great British Bake Off in the future, Donnelly said: "No soggy bottoms for us", adding "We're ITV boys."