To make matters worse, Preti's model for the saint was a humble Neapolitan docker.

ECONOMIST: Il Cavaliere Calabrese

Former docker Reg Crew is thought to have been the first British person to have travelled to die at Dignitas in January 2003.

BBC: 'My brother chose to end his suffering'

Philip Goodeve-Docker, 31, of Ealing, west London, was on the expedition with two friends, when they were caught in a severe snowstorm on 28 April.

BBC: Philip Goodeve-Docker,

They were picked up by local authorities, but Mr Goodeve-Docker died.

BBC: Philip Goodeve-Docker dies during Greenland ice trek

Mr Goodeve-Docker had dedicated the trip to his "nutty adventurer grandfather", Patrick Pirie-Gordon, who had been treasurer and honorary vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society, which helps fund polar exploration.

BBC: Philip Goodeve-Docker,

Mr Goodeve-Docker and his team-mates, Andy Norman, from Bracknell in Berkshire, and Roan Hackney, were in the early stages of their trek when a snowstorm engulfed them, blowing away their tent.

BBC: Philip Goodeve-Docker dies during Greenland ice trek

Before setting out, Mr Goodeve-Docker had written on his JustGiving fundraising webpage that they would be trekking unsupported across "one of the most dazzling, beautiful, yet barren and deadly landscapes in the world".

BBC: Philip Goodeve-Docker dies during Greenland ice trek

The man who reigns over centuries of elitism and grandeur at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House in London wears a plain, unpretentious pair of cuff links that belonged to his grandfather a hard-working Liverpool docker who went off to war in 1914 as a humble private.

WSJ: Where True Value Lies