Arts
He may have received the knighthood two decades after his former bandmate Paul McCartney, but Ringo Starr did not seem to mind.
Starr, who was among those recognised in the New Years honours list, was exuberant in reaction to the news of his title, which he described as “an honour and a pleasure”.
The knighthood comes 52 years after he was given an MBE for his global success as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr has often joked that McCartney, who was knighted in 1997, considers himself to be the only living Beatle, but McCartney has long spoken of how he feels Starr is deserving of the honour.
“It’s great! It’s an honour and a pleasure to be considered and acknowledged for my music and my charity work, both of which I love,” Starr said in a brief statement, before signing off with “peace and love”.
Others in the arts world honoured included Darcey Bussell, the former principal dancer at the Royal Ballet and now a judge on Strictly Come Dancing. Bussell said she was “truly humbled” to become a dame for services to dance.
She is being honoured more than 10 years after she was given a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours and more than 20 years after her first accolade, an OBE in 1995.
The last survivor of the Bee Gees, Barry Gibb, was also given a knighthood, and Wiley – dubbed the “godfather of grime”– was honoured with an MBE.
Gibb, 71, said he was “deeply honoured, humbled and very proud” to be recognised, adding: “This is a moment in life to be treasured and never forgotten. I want to acknowledge how responsible my brothers are for this honour. It is as much theirs as it is mine.”
Wiley, 38, who was among the early pioneers of grime, said: “It feels like the school grade I wanted and didn’t get but now I’m finally there.”Also facing up to the fact he was now “part of the establishment” was Soft Cell singer Marc Almond, 60, who was given an OBE for services to arts and culture.
The Tainted Love singer said he was “totally excited” to be receiving the honour, adding: “I can’t really be a rebel any more. I think it’s time to leave it to younger people.”
The former child laureate Michael Morpurgo was honoured with a knighthood, an accolade he immediately passed on to his most popular character, Joey from his 1982 children’s book War Horse, to whom he said the honour really belonged.
Morpurgo said: “Probably if I’m honest with myself, it is about one book. And it’s about one story and one play, the great good fortune of my writing life in terms of, I suppose, circumstance and bringing the kind of success you can’t dream of in terms of rewards and awards - it’s the play of War Horse. “There was never a knight that has owed so much to his horse as this one – and in fact, we will give the knighthood to Joey and call him Sir Joey.”
Broadcaster and writer Melvyn Bragg and author and historian Lady Antonia Fraser were both given the high distinction of Companion of Honour. HEP
Science, medicine and education
The British artificial intelligence company Deep Mind this year unveiled a computer program that took just three days to become expert in the complex Chinese board game Go. It was an achievement that some believe could pave the way for machines that can perform any human intellectual task. Its co-founder and chief executive officer, Demis Hassabis, received a CBE for services to science and technology.
Helen Sharman, a chemist who became the first British astronaut when she travelled to the Russian Mir space station in 1991, became a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to science and technology educational outreach.
Our ability to see chemical reactions happening at an atomic scale is down to Professor Pratibha Gai, who received a damehood. The York-based scientist drilled a hole in an microscope to create a new kind of device allowing scientists to look at reactions in the conditions they would normally happen in, rather than in the specific temperatures and vacuum required by electron microscopes.
https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2017/dec/29/voluntary-sector-professionals-2018-new-year-honours
In a choice example of nominative determinism, there was a knighthood for Bristol University volcanologist Prof Robert Sparks, known to colleagues as Steve Sparks. Karen Holford, the deputy vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, who started her career at Rolls Royce working on the Pegasus engine used on the Harrier jump jet, received an OBE for services to engineering and the advancement of women in science and engineering.
In medicine, there was a Knight Grand Cross for Sir Keith Peters, an expert in the immunology of renal and vascular disease. There were damehoods for Jackie Daniel, the chief executive of the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, and Clare Marx, an orthopaedic surgeon and the outgoing president of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Janet Beer, the vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool, who this autumn defended university leaders’ soaring pay against “hysterical” media reaction, received a damehood. RB
Sport
Three members of England’s World Cup winning women’s cricket squad, as well as their coach, were named on the New Year’s honours list.
The captain, Heather Knight, and the coach, Mark Robinson, are both awarded OBEs, while Knight’s teammates, Anya Shrubsole and Tammy Beaumont, receive MBEs. The England and Wales cricket board director of women’s cricket, Clare Connor, becomes a CBE, having previously been awarded an OBE.
Knight receives her OBE for services to cricket following England’s triumph in the summer, which was delivered with victory over India at Lord’s.
They were among a string of sports stars to be named on the list.
The British and Irish Lions captain, Sam Warburton, and the former Scotland rugby union captain Ian McLauchlan, are both given OBEs. Warburton, the Cardiff Blues flanker, has won 74 international caps for Wales and also led the Lions in Australia in 2013.
Ed Morrison, who was England’s first full-time professional rugby union referee and took charge of the 1995 World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand, gets an OBE.
Stef Reid, the Paralympian who won silver in the F44 long jump at the London 2012 Games and in Rio four years later, collects an MBE.
MBEs were also awarded to Eric Harrison, the former Manchester United youth team coach who helped develop the “Class of 92”, Alan Davies, the Welsh cycling coach who worked with numerous Olympic gold medallists as youngsters, and the Scotland and Lions team doctor, James Robson.
The secretary general of the International Ski Federation, Sarah Lewis, receives an OBE for services to sport, while Nicky Henderson, the trainer of the Queen’s racehorses, is made a Royal Victorian Order Lieutenant (LVO). KR
Business
Ken Olisa, the first black Briton to join the board of a FTSE 100 company, has been named a Knight Bachelor for services to business and philanthropy.
Nottingham-born Olisa said he grew up hearing that a young black man from a single-parent family such as him could not succeed. The corporate ethics expert and former parliamentary standards watchdog derided this suggestion as “bunkum” as he was recognised for a 40-year career in technology and banking, as well as his charity work.
“I feel ecstatic followed by being humbled,” said Olisa, adding that the honour was “such an important statement about the country we live in, the way the country works and accessibility for everyone in the country”.
“I landed in a place where people said those of single parentage, black people are disadvantaged, can’t get along, and people who are poor can’t get opportunities. I think it’s bunkum. I’ve devoted a lot of my life ... to what I call social inclusion, trying to help people who believe that kind of bunkum to realise it isn’t true.”
The Cambridge graduate became the first British-born black man to serve as a director of a major UK company when he joined the board of Thomson Reuters in 2004.
He is joined on the honours list by husband and wife power couple Chrissie Rucker and Nick Wheeler, both of whom were awarded OBEs.
Rucker started upmarket homewares firm The White Company, while husband Wheeler founded the Charles Tyrwhitt shirt-maker.
The pair jointly own their retail empire via holding company Bectin Limited, which reported a pre-tax profit of £19m in the year to March 2016 on revenues of nearly £300m.
Businesswoman Vivian Hunt, a managing partner for UK and Ireland at management consultant McKinsey, received a damehood for services to the economy and women in business.
Raja Adil, whose Adil Group owns a sprawling network of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Costa Coffee and Burger King franchises, was awarded an OBE for services to business, job creation and charity. RD
General public
Not everyone on the new year honours list is a household name. Alongside rock stars, prima ballerinas and Tory powerbrokers are hardworking individuals across the length and breadth of the UK who have dedicated themselves to serving their communities – in some cases for several decades.
The reach of the honours list stretches as far north as Kirkwall, Orkney, where Margaret Jamieson, 94, received a British Empire medal (BEM) for supporting community projects through the Blue Door charity shop.
The shop – founded by Jamieson in 2003 – is offered rent free to a different Orkney-based organisation each week and has raised more than £1.7m for different groups.
At the other end of the country, Geoffrey Evans, the Conservative councillor for Falmouth Arwenack in Cornwall, received an MBE for more than 40 years’ service as a councillor.
Helena Jones, 101, received a BEM for her services to young people and the community in Brecon, Powys, while 18-year-old Lucia Mee was the youngest person on the list. She received a BEM for services to promoting public awareness about organ donation. Mee has had three liver transplants, the first when she was eight.
Afrasiab Anwar, 38, was honoured with an MBE for services to community cohesion in Burnley. His work was previously recognised through the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Awards and includes working with Building Bridges, an interfaith organisation.
Midwife Sara Fitzsimmons was awarded an MBE for her charitable work, for co-founding Simpson’s Memory Box Appeal (Simba) an organisation that provides support to bereaved families at the Simpson maternity ward at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh.
The charity gathers precious items to give to parents whose babies have died, been stillborn or miscarried. The charity has supplied thousands of boxes to maternity units across the UK.
