WE last voted on our membership of Europe 41 years ago. Therefore, no one under the age of 59 has ever had their say, so June 23’s referendum is a once-in-two generations opportunity.

Yet, despite 16-year-olds being allowed a say in whether Scotland’s future was as part of the United Kingdom, you will have to be 18 to have a say on whether Britain’s future is part of a united Europe.

Perhaps this is not surprising. It is only as recently as 1970 that the UK lowered its minimum voting age from 21 to 18, which is in common with 85 per cent of countries. Only five per cent of countries allow 16-year-olds to vote, and only one European country, Austria, allows them to take part in general elections.

There are some fascinating variations internationally. Iran is the only country to have allowed 15-year-olds to vote, although it reverted back to 18 in 2011. Hungary has given the vote to married 16-year-olds, and former Yugoslavian countries have enfranchised employed, tax-paying 16-year-olds. South Korea has given the vote to 17-year-olds – who thought Kim Jung-un was so enlightened?

Most countries that allow 16-year-olds to vote are in central and southern America: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, although it doesn’t become compulsory to vote in these countries until 18.

They also put a surprise twist on the end of compulsory voting: once you become a pensioner, you don’t have to vote.

Taking this one step further, the only place in the world where there is a maximum voting age is the Vatican – only cardinals under 80 may participate.

Which gives rise to an interesting thought: is it right that someone who is, say, 90 should play a part in a once-in-60-years decision whereas a 16-year-old, who has a chance of living through each of those 60 years, does not?

TALKING of nonagenarians, over her 90 years, the Queen has acquired many titles. She is “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”, plus she’s queen of 15 other countries, from Antigua and Barbuda through to St Vincent and the Grenadines, and of Tuvalu, a Polynesian island chain.

And she’s Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth (in Wales), Baroness of Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy…the list goes on.

Somewhere on it, I believe, there should be acknowledgement that she is also the Countess of Sadberge, a hilltop village on the eastern edge of Darlington.

A thousand years ago, Sadberge was the capital of a wapentake – it was lord of all that could be seen from the top of its hill, from Hartlepool on the coast to Barnard Castle and beyond in the Pennines, and it was ruled over by an earl and a countess.

This title belonged to the monarch until 1189 when King Richard the Lionheart, desperate for cash for his crusades, sold his Sadberge estate to the Bishop of Durham for £11,000 (many millions today), and the earl and the countess fell by the wayside.

Yet the wheel of history turns full circle. The prince bishops waned, and when in the 1836, their last vestiges of power were broken up by the newly formed Church Commissioners, someone spotted that they were a countess short of a full peerage. Fortunately, the following year, Victoria came to the throne, and so she was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – with Empress of India added later – and Countess of Sadberge.