The 53-year-old post office manager was given the trip of a lifetime to Graceland – the home of Elvis Presley – after her husband Keith, 57, won it in a radio competition.

The itinerary included:

l three nights in Tupelo Mississippi, where Elvis Presley was born

l seven nights in Memphis

l a visit to Graceland

l a visit to Sun Studios, Stax and Beale Street

l an all night party on the roof of the Gibson guitar factory.

Mrs Kitching said the highlight of the trip was, without a doubt, Graceland. She said: “It was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. The gardens were wonderful and peaceful even though there were so many people there. It was more beautiful than I expected.”

She travelled with her 15-year-old grand-daughter, Kimberly Herbert, and she said the teenager – who was not even born when Elvis was alive – really enjoyed the trip as well.

“She’s saving up to go back in two or three years she was so taken by it all,” Mrs Kitching said. “She’s seen his movies and heard his music at our place but she was a lot more taken with the trip than I expected she would be.”

Mrs Kitching said the candlelit vigil had been arranged to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Elvis’ death and it went on until 3am.

She said: “They started queueing for that in the middle of the afternoon. Because of the amount of people they said it might go past 6am.”

Mrs Kitching said the visit to the Sun Studios was really interesting. She said: “They even had the old recording equipment that they used to record on. You can still book a place and go in and record.”

Mr Kitching, a former bus driver had to correctly identify 10 Elvis songs from snippets broadcast on Big L, an Essex-based radio station. Out of thousands who entered he was one of only a handful who identified all 10.

l See Danny Wilde’s unique tribute to “The King” on SEN TV. Just visit the website www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk anc click on the SEN TV logo