Honour for Victoria was refused 4 times
SHE was one of Britain’s bestloved comedy stars whose death earlier this year was mourned across the country.
But although Victoria Wood thrilled millions of fans with her gentle humour, she was denied an OBE on four separate occasions, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Cabinet Office papers obtained under Freedom of Information laws show that the star was snubbed in the New Year Honours in 1994, the Queen’s Birthday and New Year Honours in 1996, and the New Year Honours a year later, despite being shortlisted each time.
Wood was already established as one of the country’s biggest stars, with hit shows such as Victoria Wood As Seen On TV.
The Government papers are heavily redacted and do not explain why she was omitted from the lists.
Some will speculate whether she damaged her chances of receiving an honour by poking fun at then Prime Minister John Major, his wife Norma, and his Government in her sell-out shows.
In one routine she described the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd as looking ‘like someone very high up in the carpet department at Selfridges’, and in another she joked that the 1991 mortar attack on Downing Street was an attempt by Margaret Thatcher to recover the curtains from Major. During a tour in 1993 she described Norma Major as the ‘sort of woman who has a separate J-cloth for each bath tap’. While a source last night said it was ‘unthinkable’ that these jokes would have impacted on the final decision by No10 on whether she made the Honours List, Wood did receive an OBE in Tony Blair’s first Honours List weeks after he came to power in 1997.
The documents suggest that the star may have been recommended for the honour by a Minister or Government department.
The department that suggested Wood has been blanked out in the Cabinet Office papers but one of the documents shows Ministers are advised to indicate an order of preference if they are nominating more than one individual from a particular field. In 1994, the comedian was ranked sixth in the entertainment field, but in the two lists of 1996 she had fallen to 12th and 7th place respectively.
Even when she rose to first place in her field in the New Year Honours List of 1997 she still missed out. Between 1994 and 1997, Jimmy Tarbuck, David Bellamy, Valerie Singleton, Terry Wogan and Joan Collins – who was based in the US at the time – were all given OBEs.
Mr Major also awarded a gong to his outgoing press secretary Gus O’Donnell.
A spokesman for Sir John Major said he had no recollection of the recommendations and played no
‘She was ranked first but still missed out’
part in the final decision. The Cabinet Office declined to comment.
Victoria Wood’s former husband Geoffrey Durham said he had been unaware of the recommendations.
Mr Durham, who remained close to his ex-wife following their divorce in 2002, said: ‘I don’t have any information on this subject at all. You can extrapolate from that that I knew nothing about it at the time either.’
Wood died of cancer in April, aged 62. Besides her 1997 OBE, she was also awarded the CBE by Gordon Brown’s Government in 2008.