Drive to reward those who share monarch’s public service ideals

THE Queen’s birthday honours list especially recognises those who have echoed the monarch’s lifelong dedication to public service.

Nearly 60 per cent of recipients are cited for their community work, with particular emphasis on individuals who have, like the Queen, spent decades working for the benefit of others.

Angela Redgrave, 104, is the oldest on this year’s list and the founder and principal of Bristol School of Dancing. She has taught ballet at the institution for more than 50 years and still oversees lessons. She is to receive a BEM.

Also commended for a life dedicated to service is Patricia Anne Husselbee, who has spent 64 years fundraising for the Royal British Legion.

At a press conference this week to announce the list, the secretary of the Newport Women’s Section said: “I don’t do it for the medals, I do it because it’s needed. You see those poor soldiers, hear their stories, which are hard.”

The 2022 list also reflects how much public attitudes have changed during the Queen’s reign. Rupert Whitaker and Martyn Butler, co-founders of the HIV charity the Terrence Higgins Trust which was created in 1982 and named after one of the UK’S first known Aids patients to die, both receive OBES.

The trust has had long-term support from the Duke of Sussex, who embraced the legacy of his mother Princess Diana’s work with Aids patients

While many recipients have a lifetime of public service behind them, others have only just begun. The youngest announced yesterday were 11-year-old twins Elena and Ruben Evans-guillen from Warrington, Cheshire, who raised £50,000 for NHS and Nhs-related charities over the past three years.

Last Sunday, they embarked on their latest effort – swimming the equivalent of the Channel in a pool to raise money for the Children’s Adventure Farm Trust, a Cheshire organisation that helps youths with difficult childhoods.

Last year, they were given one of the Prime Minister’s Point of Light Awards.

Dame Barbara Monroe, who chairs the honours committee for public service, said that awards for community work were the heart of what the honours system represented.

“We’re in danger of a public discourse that is a little bit cynical, and mistrustful,” she said.

“The honours system is one way of recognising what I have learned through my own professional career in end-of-life care, which is the most amazing impulse toward kindness and compassion in people.

“People want to make things better for other people, and they don’t want people to be left behind.”