Teenage cancer victim Stephen Sutton has been honoured with an MBE in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours, just weeks after losing his fight against the disease.
The 19-year-old, who accepted the honour before his death on May 14, is joined in the latest round of honours by A-lister Angelina Jolie, who receives an honorary damehood for her work to fight sexual violence.
Jolie, who has been co-chairing the End Sexual Violence in Conflict (ESVC) global summit with Foreign Secretary William Hague in London this week, is recognised in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas Birthday 2014 Honours list, for exceptional service to Britain overseas.
The pair are among more than 1,100 people recognised in the latest set of honours, announced today.
Stephen’s MBE is backdated to the date of his death last month, which touched millions and resulted in a huge boost in donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Today his mother Jane said although he always said he did not want recognition for his charity work, even he acknowledged that to receive an MBE was “awesome” and definitely gave it his trademark “thumbs up”.
The teenager, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer at 15, became a household name as he helped raise £4 million for the fight against cancer, staying positive throughout his illness despite his impending death.
Mrs Sutton said: “Shortly before Stephen passed away on May 14 he received a letter from the Cabinet Office asking if he was agreeable to accepting an MBE in recognition of his fundraising and services to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
“He thought it was an incredible honour to have been nominated and it definitely got the ‘thumbs up’.”
She said the honour was a “wonderful recognition” of her son’s charity work and would help promote the legacy of his Facebook page “Stephen’s Story”.
“Although Stephen continually told all of us that he didn’t do his charity work for recognition, even he acknowledged that to be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire was ‘AWESOME’,” she added.
Teenage Cancer Trust chief executive Siobhan Dunn, said Stephen was an exceptional young man who had created the single biggest fundraising event in the Trust’s history.
She said: “His achievements are outstanding and it is wonderful to see him honoured in this way.
“Stephen didn’t measure life in time, preferring instead to measure it by the difference someone makes.”
Angelina Jolie today receives an honorary damehood (DCMG) for services to UK foreign policy and the campaign to end war zone sexual violence.
The star, who is special envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with Mr Hague in 2012, said: “Working on the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative and with survivors of rape is an honour in itself.
“I know that succeeding in our goals will take a lifetime, and I am dedicated to it for all of mine.”
Announcing the honours, the Cabinet Office said there were roughly equal numbers of women and men recipients, with women making up 49%.
The awards see actress Dame Maggie Smith made a Companion of Honour; while Daniel Day-Lewis receives a knighthood, and Homeland star Damian Lewis gets an OBE.
Day-Lewis, whose 2012 Oscar win for Lincoln made him the first man to win three best actor statuettes, said he was “entirely amazed and utterly delighted”, while Lewis, who starred in 2001 Second World War epic Band of Brothers, said he decided to do “the very un-British thing” of accepting the compliment of an honour.
Britain’s winter Olympians followed their summer predecessors’ success with MBEs going to skeleton gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold, Britain’s first gold medallist of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, and to visually-impaired skier Kelly Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans, who won Britain’s first ever gold medal in the Winter Paralympics.
Yarnold, 25, said the honour was a “complete surprise”, saying: “Getting an MBE feels so different to the awards you achieve as an athlete because those are the ones you have been working towards day after day in training.”
Also in the world of sport, an OBE goes to Wales rugby head coach Warren Gatland, who said it was a “massive honour” and he was “absolutely over the moon”.
Best-selling author Hilary Mantel becomes a dame, as does golfer Laura Davies and fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.
Mantel, whose novels about the life of King Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell have been critical and commercial hits, said she saw the honour as “encouragement for the future” as much as a reward for the past.
Torchwood star John Barrowman, who has also enjoyed a successful West End career and hosted a number of TV shows, said he was thrilled to receive an MBE in today’s list, declaring: “I’m going to enjoy it for the rest of my life.”
And singer songwriter Cerys Matthews, formerly of the Welsh band Catatonia and now a radio and TV presenter, said it was “incredible” to be recognised but her MBE was more for the records she had played on air than the ones she had made herself.
A CBE goes to BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time presenter Roy Lancaster; writer and Beatles expert Hunter Davies gets an OBE; and folk musician Eliza Carthy receives an MBE.
Julie Gardner, a TV executive who helped spearhead the revival of hit sci-fi drama Doctor Who, is recognised with an MBE. She was instrumental in bringing back the show as a former head of drama for BBC Wales and was also behind the spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
MBEs go to Shirley Fewings, manager of Dawlish and East Teignbridge Volunteer Service, and Steven Iles, head of highways at Croydon Council, who both helped people in the aftermath of the February floods.
An MBE also goes to the Rev John Wood, vicar at St Ann’s Church in Tottenham, north London, who helped build local relationships after the riots in 2011.
Sylvia Lancaster, whose 20-year-old daughter Sophie was killed in 2007 when she and her boyfriend were attacked by a gang of youths for being goths, receives an OBE for services to community cohesion after she set up a foundation in her daughter’s memory to stamp out prejudice and promote understanding of subcultures.
Political historian and head of Wellington College Anthony Seldon, whose books include Tony Blair’s biography, receives a knighthood, as does Robert Francis QC, who chaired the public inquiry into the controversial Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
A CBE goes to former Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Elizabeth Filkin, author of the controversial report on the relationship between the police and the media in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, while John Simpson, who was chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1993 until last year, gets an OBE for services to literature.
Industry and the economy makes up 11% of the list while awards in science and technology, which make up 3% of the total, include knighthoods for Professor Thomas Kibble, whose work contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson, or so-called “God particle”, and for outspoken neuroscientist and animal activist target Professor Colin Blakemore, who was previously overlooked by the honours system.
The British Empire Medal (BEM), resurrected in June 2012 for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, goes to recipients including 19-year-old George Fielding, chair, ambassador and Kidz Board member of disabled children’s charity Whizz Kidz, as well as 99-year-old Ethel Dobbins, for her service to the community in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire.
Affectionately known to her many friends as Dobbie, the former district nurse, midwife and social worker said her first thought on learning she was to receive the BEM was “wow”.
In the diplomatic list, BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet receives an OBE for services to British broadcast journalism.
