IT all began four years ago with the idea of marketing Yorkshire through a version of the Railway Children that originated at the National Railway Museum and moved to London.

For six months, a PR campaign waged by Welcome to Yorkshire at Waterloo Station put the county in front of ten million passengers who use the terminus every month and it worked.

The marketing ploy was the brainchild of new chief executive Gary Verity, who at the time said Yorkshire was the fastest-growing tourist destination in the UK, adding: “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Well it did. Fast forward to 2011 and Verity made himself a household name with an audacious proposal to put Yorkshire in front of three billion TV viewers by bringing the Tour de France here.

It was a bold initiative that some thought would never come to fruition. But a year later doubters were forced to eat their words.

Mr Verity promised the best ever race start and, as we saw last weekend, was as good as his word. He could perhaps be forgiven for repeating his quote that it really couldn’t “get any better than that”, but on a personal level it might do next week when he is awarded an honorary degree at the University of York.

Fittingly, Liz Wilson, chief executive of York Theatre Royal, will also be honoured at the ceremony. She was another name behind the Railway Children project, but like Mr Verity used it as a springboard and is currently spearheading a £4 million refurbishment at the theatre, while overseeing one of the country’s busiest education and community departments.

Even more significantly, Ms Wilson steered the theatre through some difficult financial times.

Honorary degrees are not given out lightly, but we think these two are especially deserved.