King's Birthday Honours: Ian Wright, Ken Bruce and Davina McCall on list

By Francesca Gillett

BBC News

Ex-footballer Ian Wright has received an OBE and broadcasters Ken Bruce and Davina McCall have been made MBEs in the King’s first Birthday Honours list.

Former hostage Terry Waite is given a knighthood, alongside novelists Ben Okri, and Martin Amis, who died in May.

Also knighted is acclaimed director Stephen Frears – known for The Queen – and Exeter Labour MP Ben Bradshaw.

And Vogue’s Dame Anna Wintour and author Sir Ian McEwan join the elite Companions of Honour.

Celia Imrie – who starred in Calendar Girls and Bridget Jones – and Shine on Harvey Moon’s Kenneth Cranham have also been made CBEs, while Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure is made an MBE.

This year’s list is the first from King Charles for his official birthday in June, which is separate from his actual birthday in November.

As well as famous faces, the list recognises people involved in events following the Queen’s death last year, and also those who have helped Ukrainian refugees.

Former Arsenal and England footballer and TV pundit Wright upgrades his MBE to an OBE for services to football and charity, while television presenter McCall, who started her career in the 1990s before presenting hit show Big Brother, is made an MBE for services to broadcasting.

Bruce – who swapped his long-running BBC Radio 2 show for Greatest Hits Radio earlier this year – is also made an MBE for services to radio, charity and autism awareness. His son, Murray, has autism.

He labelled the honour a “great surprise and privilege”, while McCall said: “I can’t believe it. It’s a great honour and it really means a great deal.”

Charity work is also cited in McClure’s MBE, as well as drama, for her work helping people with dementia. She founded a choir for people with dementia and presented a TV documentary that explored music’s ability to combat its effects, after having cared for her grandmother with the disease.

As well as fashion editor Dame Anna and Sir Ian, Prof Sir John Bell has made it into the exclusive Companions of Honour, where membership is limited to 65 people. He is an immunologist who worked on the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, and said he was “delighted” to be recognised.

Author Sir Ian told the PA news agency he was “delighted” by the surprise news, adding: “I guess it amounts to a really good review”.

The new Sir Terry, 84, receives an Order of St Michael and St George – making him a knight – for exceptional services overseas after a lifetime of charity work working to free hostages.

He was a hostage negotiator who was himself kidnapped in Lebanon in 1987 and held captive for five years after going there to try and get the release of several captured Britons.

Head of MI6 Richard Moore is given the same honour, for services to national security, calling it “a proud day.”

Nigerian-born poet and author Sir Ben – who won the Booker Prize for his novel The Famished Road in 1991 – is also knighted, as well as Sir Martin, who accepted the honour before he died aged 73 last month.

Also given knighthoods are former BBC director general Mark Thompson and Sky executive chairman Jeremy Darroch, who has been acknowledged for services to business, charity and sustainability.

Acclaimed director Sir Stephen, 81, has decades of success in cinema and television – and has been described as one of Britain’s finest directors and the elusive figure behind many favourite films.

As well as The Queen, his films include Dangerous Liaisons, Philomena, My Beautiful Laundrette, Florence Foster Jenkins and last year’s The Lost King.

Knighted alongside him is Sir Ben Bradshaw, who has been an MP for more than 25 years, but plans to step down at the next general election next year.

Damehoods go to Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie for political and public service, economist Prof Diane Coyle and World Netball president Liz Nicholl – as well as other figures spanning the fields of medicine, advertising, insurance and conservation.

Elsewhere, singer-songwriter Caron Wheeler, known as lead singer of R&B group Soul II Soul, is made an OBE for services to music.

And consultant gynaecologist Alan Farthing, who helped deliver the Prince and Princess of Wales’s three children, George, Charlotte and Louis, is made a commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO).

Other politicians recognised in this year’s list include Conservative MP Bob Blackman and Welsh government minister Jane Hutt, who are made CBEs, while MPs Damian Collins and Heather Wheeler are also made OBEs.

In sport, Rangers legend John Greig is made a CBE, alongside Sarah Hunter, retired England women’s rugby captain. Ex-Lionesses striker Eniola Aluko becomes an MBE.

OBEs go to double Paralympian archer Pippa Britton, England wheelchair rugby captain Tom Halliwell, former England cricketer Lydia Greenway, blind Paralympic footballer David Clarke and wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett.

Meanwhile, businesswoman Barbara Laithwaite, who founded home-delivery wine merchant Laithwaite’s Wine with her husband, becomes a CBE.

There are 1,171 people on this year’s list – split almost evenly between 585 men and 586 women.

According to the Cabinet Office – which oversees the honours system – 52% are people who recognised for work in their communities, and 11% come from an ethnic minority background.

The oldest recipient is 106-year-old Joan Willett, who receives a British Empire Medal for fundraising for the British Heart Foundation. The youngest is Junior Jay Frood, 18, an anti-bullying campaigner from Birkenhead who receives a BEM for services to vulnerable children.

Mr Frood told PA: “It feels really amazing and good because it shows no matter how young you are you can receive this award.”

• Companion of Honour – Limited to 65 people. Recipients wear the initials CH after their name
• Knight or Dame
• CBE – Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• OBE – Officer of the Order of the British Empire
• MBE – Member of the Order of the British Empire
• BEM – British Empire Medal

Releasing this year’s list, the Cabinet Office said it had a “renewed focus on those who have had a profoundly positive impact on how society faces up to the most challenging issues of the modern era”.

Among the hundreds of less famous faces on the list is Sheila Reith, who has been made a CBE for having come up with the idea of an insulin injection pen, which changed the lives of people with diabetes and from which she made no financial gain.

Also honoured is a former music teacher and composer with dementia, Paul Harvey, whose piece of music went viral in 2020.

He ended up raising more than £1.5m for dementia services and spreading awareness of how musical ability can survive memory loss, and now becomes an OBE.

Another recipient is an award-winning Melton Mowbray pork pie baker, 66-year-old Stephen Hallam, who has been appointed MBE.

Meanwhile angling coach Sue Galloway, originally from Zimbabwe, said she thought the letter she received from the Cabinet Office was because she was “being deported”.

Volunteers who have helped to support Ukraine are also recognised – including Alice Good from Alnwick who becomes an MBE for services to Ukrainian refugees after setting up a group called Sunflower Sisters to help women arriving from Ukraine.

Razvan Constantinescu from Bristol also received an MBE for arranging for more than 4,000 boxes of aid to be sent to people from the war-ravaged town of Odesa and its neighbouring villages.

• The UK honours system recognises people who have “made achievements in public life” and “committed themselves to serving and helping Britain”
• Any member of the public – or an official body – can nominate someone for an honour
• Committees of independent experts meet to review nominations twice a year – and then a main committee decides and agrees a final list
• That list then goes to the prime minister and then the King who awards them
• Honours are usually announced twice a year, at new year and for the King’s official birthday
• They are used to thank volunteers, entrepreneurs, innovators, those who display “moral courage”, people who make a difference in their community and those who help improve others’ lives

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