HONOURS EARNED
Queen’s Birthday list recognition... and the first of many caps for Barnes?
A 22-year-old from Leicestershire says she is “gob-smacked” to be recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Amelia Collins-Patel has become a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for voluntary service to children and young people.
Amelia, from Thurnby, has spent the lockdown months helping to make sure people have not felt lonely or anxious by arranging catch-up chats in the community and helping run sessions with an organisation called Project Hope which was set up to help those aged between 13 and 25 who are struggling during the pandemic.
She told the Mercury: “I just feel over the moon, I’m gob-smacked but obviously so happy.
“I’ve had to keep this a secret from almost everybody - even my sister.
“But I’m looking forward to being able to celebrate. I still have no idea who nominated me, but it was such a nice thing to do.”
Her inclusion in the Honours List, however, comes after years of voluntary and community work which began when she was nine with her forming a club focused on protecting the environment at St Luke’s Primary School in Thurnby.
She started volunteering at her local church and Girlguiding group, and supported young people with vulnerabilities such as mental health issues and special educational needs in her spare time.
For four years, up to 2018, she served as an ambassador for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), leading fund-raising drives and raising awareness.
She served on the NSPCC Youth
I still have no idea who nominated me, but it was such a nice thing to do
Advisory Board helping trustees and senior staff understand the perspectives of children and young people.
Amelia, who has just finished her degree and now lives in Walsall and teaches coding to school pupils, supported the Royal Foundation’s Taskforce on the Prevention of Cyberbullying, which aims to ensure that children and young people can use social media and gaming platforms safely.
Rutland can also count two people in Honours list.
Margaret Simpson, from Oakham, has received a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to multiple organisations in the community in Rutland during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 74-year-old is the administrator for the EJ Toon Trust, which supports every person over 80 in Oakham, and has reached out to many of them to see what help and support they needed. She coordinates volunteers to deliver support, whether it be grocery shopping, collecting and delivering prescriptions, personal transport to the Uppingham Surgery or a whole variety of repair and replacement issues and has been a longserving member of the Rotary Club.
Patricia Ruddle from Langham also has a BEM.
The 68-year-old helped set up the voluntary fund-raising group For Rutland which supports Citizens
Amelia CollinsPatel
Advice, raising about £90,000 a year.
The former High Sheriff of Rutland is, and has been, a long-term supporter trustee at Warning Zone and raised money and the profile of the charity over many years.
Warning Zone teaches all 10 year olds in both Rutland and Leicestershire about the dangers of modern life and teaches about taking responsibility.
Others local recipients to be included on the Honours list are as follows:
QUEEN’S POLICE MEDAL (QPM)
■ Chief Inspector Manjit Kaur Atwal. Leicestershire Police.
■ Colin Stott. Formerly Detective chief Superintendent, Leicestershire Police.
OBE
■ Janet Claire Thompson. Headteacher, Dorothy Goodman School, Hinckley. For services to Education.
Nationally, David Suchet has said he feels “full of gratitude” after receiving a knighthood.
The actor, best known for playing Hercule Poirot in the long-running
Agatha Christie detective series, has had a career spanning 50 years.
He has been recognised for services to drama and charity.
Suchet said: “I feel so very honoured, privileged and full of gratitude to the Queen, my country and my profession.”
Born in London in 1946, he joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 16 and later trained at the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
His career began in the theatre at the Watermill in Bagnor, Berkshire, before he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1973.
His first television role came in 1970 in The Mating Machine and in 1980, he played Edward Teller, later developer of the US H-bomb, in a mini-series about the US Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer.
He portrayed Sigmund Freud in the BBC mini-series Freud in 1984 before he first appeared as moustachioed detective Poirot in Agatha Christie’s Poirot on ITV in 1989 and received international acclaim, reprising the role over 70 episodes until 2013.
His interpretation of the Belgian super-sleuth is considered by many to be the definitive one and in his book, Poirot And Me, he mentions that Sir Peter Ustinov (who also famously played Poirot) once told him that he would be good at taking on the role.
Suchet received the RTS and BPG awards for his performance as Augustus Melmotte in the adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now.
Most recently he has appeared in the BBC dramas Press and Doctor Who and in the adaptation of the Philip Pullman novels His Dark Materials.
On stage, he played opposite Dame Diana Rigg in the West End production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? in 1996 and played Salieri from 1998 to 2000 in the Broadway production Amadeus. He also starred as Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession, about the death of Pope John Paul I. He was given a CBE in 2011 for services to drama.
■ Full list of local honours on Monday