Runners and writers: who got what in the birthday honours list

Arts

The prolific author Susan Hill and the renowned choreographer Siobhan Davies have both been made dames.

Hill, the author of The Woman in Black, has won numerous awards for her work, including the Whitbread novel award, and is one of few living authors to have three books on the set book lists for GCSEs and A-levels.

Davies rose to prominence as a founding member of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and is the artistic director of Siobhan Davies Dance.

Also made a dame is Vikki Heywood, the former chair of the Royal Society for the Arts, who during her 40-year career has overseen the rebuilding of two national theatres.

The abstract expressionist artist Frank Bowling said he was “extremely proud” to be made a knight at the age of 86. The Guyana-born artist still works in his studio almost every day.

The TV writer and director Sally Wainwright, who has been behind some of the biggest television dramas in recent years including Gentleman Jack, is made an OBE.

For services to music, Jeff Lynne, the co-founder of the rock group Electric Light Orchestra, has also been made an OBE.

The rapper Dizzee Rascal has been made an MBE, and the hip-hip duo Krept and Konan are awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM).

The soap star and singer Mica Paris, who recently joined the cast of EastEnders, is made an MBE.

The Mamma Mia! creator Judy Craymer said she was honoured to be made a CBE. She said: “It’s bittersweet to receive an honour when theatre is thrown into such darkness and we are in such calamity, but at the same time it’s great an honour can shine a light on the industry and visibility of the arts and theatre.”

Sport

While the footballer Marcus Rashford has been given an MBE for his campaigning work on free school meals, others from the world of sport are honoured for their services to the industry.

The former long-distance runner Brendan Foster receives a knighthood for services to international and national sport and culture in the north-east. Fifty years ago at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games he was presented with his first senior international medal – a bronze in the 1500m – by the Queen. “Since then I’ve been lucky enough to spend my whole life doing something that I’ve loved from childhood – participating, sharing my enthusiasm through broadcasting, and for the last 40 years encouraging thousands to run for pleasure.”

The Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas is made a CBE and the English cricketer Darren Gough is made an MBE.

The Scottish curler Eve Muirhead becomes an MBE. The 30-year-old, a former junior and senior world champion who skipped her team to Olympic bronze in Sochi in 2014, said: “I’ve been curling for the majority of my life and I’ve put a lot of time and effort into getting where I am today in the sport, so although I’m very modest about these things it is definitely very nice to be recognised.”

Politics

The Conservative party donor and businessman Tony Gallagher, who is friends with the former prime minister David Cameron, is being knighted. Gallagher, a multimillionaire property developer, has handed the Tories hundreds of thousands of pounds via his firm, Countywide Developments Ltd. Among a series of donations in recent years, the company gave £500,000 to the Conservative party prior to the general election last year. Gallagher is being honoured for “services to land development and the property business”.

The businessman, who hosted a 50th birthday party for Cameron at his 17th-century country mansion in 2016, is said to be part of the so-called “Chipping Norton set” based near the Cotswolds village in Cameron’s old Oxfordshire constituency.

Clare Moriarty, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU, is receiving a damehood for public service.

Sir Tim Barrow, the UK ambassador to the EU, is being honoured with the Knight Grand Cross (GCMG), the highest rank of the order of St Michael and St George, for services to British foreign policy. Sir Julian King, who was the UK’s last commissioner in Brussels, is receiving the same honour for services to security in Europe.

Sarah MacIntosh, the UK permanent representative to Nato in Brussels, is being made a dame commander (DCMG) under the same order, for services to British foreign policy.

There are knighthoods for two former Labour MPs, the former minister David Hanson and Nic Dakin, who both lost their seats at the 2019 general election. The former Tory MP Anne Main, who also lost her seat last year, is made a CBE.

Science

Rarely has the world of science featured so significantly in the Queen’s birthday honours list. This year many previously unknown names are singled out for their work to combat the Covid-19 crisis.

Ali Ghorbangholi, 29, and Prof Mark Wilson, 46, co-founders of the GoodSAM app, which alerts people trained in CPR to nearby emergencies, are awarded OBEs after developing a platform to mobilise volunteers to support people shielding. More than 750,000 people signed up.

Ghorbangholi, of Ealing, west London, said: “I spent most of my time in a dark room staring at a computer screen, so the OBE really means a lot to me.” Of an increase in black and minority ethnic recipients of honours, he added: “It shows diversity and great work and great achievements honoured regardless of your background, age and sex, it can be a motivation factor for so many.”

Prof Stephen Holgate, a co-founder of the pharmaceutical company Synairgen, which has developed an inhaled coronavirus treatment, receives a knighthood. Holgate, also a clinical professor of immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton, said: “After lacking the limelight for so long, it is wonderful that the dedication, imagination and courage of so many colleagues is now being recognised in positioning lung disease as a top medical priority.”

The CEO of the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Emma Walmsley, said she was “humbled” at being made a dame. GSK and Vir Biotechnology trials of their potential coronavirus treatment is expanding globally.

Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, who leads the Covid Symptom Study (CSS) app with the health science company ZOE, is made an OBE.

Jatinder Harchowal, 51, a chief pharmacist at the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust, who set up the pharmacy service at the Nightingale hospital in London at a time when he himself had contracted Covid and had to live apart from his family, receives an MBE. He said: “It was really challenging. I’ve got many years of experience but this was an unusual setting for all of us. I couldn’t have done it without working really closely with colleagues across London.”