Stephen Sutton awarded MBE in Queen’s birthday honours
Teenage cancer victim Stephen Sutton is honoured in the Queen’s birthday honours list, joining A-list celebrities and Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic champions.
The 19-year-old Stephen Sutton accepted his honour before his death on 14 May, after raising millions of pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
He was diagonsed with cancer at the age of 15, and set out to raise £10,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust through his JustGiving page, but donations have kept coming in and now exceed £4.2 million.
Mr Sutton is joined by British winners at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics along with A-list actors, including Angelina Jolie, who receives an honorary damehood for her work to fight sexual violence.
Ms Jolie has been co-chairing the End Sexual Violence in Conflict global summit with Foreign Secretary William Hague in London this week, and is recognised for exceptional service to Britain overseas.
Over 1,000 people have been recognised in the latest honours list, including Amy Nicholson, 29, who was honoured for her bravery in dealing with the public when fusilier Lee Rigby was murdered in Woolwich, south east London in May last year.
The TfL ticket inspector was lauded for her “commitment and passion” when her bus stopped near where soldier Lee Rigby was murdered. She ensured all buses were evacuated and then led passengers to safety beyond the police cordon.
Lizzy Yarnold, Britain’s first gold medallist of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in the skeleton, received an MBE, while her visually-impaired compatriot Kelly Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans also received MBEs, after winning Britain’s first ever gold medal in the Winter Paralympics.
Celebrities receiving honours included Daniel Day-Lewis, who received a knighthood after his 2012 Oscar win for Lincoln made him the first man to win three best actor statuettes.
Fellow British actor Damian Lewis received and OBE after his starring roles in US dramas Homeland and Band of Brothers. He said he decided to do “the very un-British thing” of accepting the compliment of an honour.
Professors Thomas Kibble and Tejinder Virdee of Imperial College, London, received honours for contributing to the discovery of the Higgs boson, or so-called God particle, while Paul Hawkins, who invented the Hawk-Eye ball-tracking system used at Wimbledon and in football matches, was also recognised.
Best-selling author Hilary Mantel has been made a dame, as was golfer Laura Davies and fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.
Torchwood star and West End actor John Barrowman received an MBE, while singer and songwriter Cerys Matthews, formerly of the Welsh band Catatonia, also received an MBE.
Among the 1,149 honoured in the birthday list, 49 per cent were women. It follows the New Year’s honours list when 51 per cent of the people honoured were women – the first time they had ever outnumbered men.