In a ceremony at The Monastery, Manchester, on the 24th February 2022, 14 Honour’s Recipients received their medals from The Lord-Lieutenant. The Vice Lord-Lieutenant and High Sheriff were also in attendance to help and to congratulate all the recipients.
There were 5 recipients of the MBE and 9 recipients of the British Empire Medal who attended with friends and family to celebrate their fantastic achievements in the wonderful setting of the Great Nave at The Monastery.
The recipients and their guests from across Greater Manchester listened to the citations which were read out by the Clerk to the Lieutenancy and broke into applause as each of the stories were revealed and each walked forward to receive their medals from the Lord-Lieutenant. Photographs from the event can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DXkK2gSLAZbaGRck6
The recipients were as follows:
Albert ASPEN MBE
Albert has made a lifetime commitment to wrestling, competing, and inspiring young wrestlers in Bolton for over 60 years, whilst working as a self-employed roofer.
His national wrestling career started in the late 1950’s and continued until the 1990’s. He has tirelessly
dedicated his spare time to promoting the sport as a competitor, trainer and manager and devoted a large part of his career to coaching youth at all levels, including the British team on six occasions. His son Brian is also a decorated British Team wrestler.
Albert is a six time British Champion and won several medals, representing Great Britain in four Olympic Games, seven Commonwealth Games, five World Championships and two European Championships, either as a competitor or team manager or coach.
He is noted for his exceptional coaching skills at both club and international level and was instrumental in the creation of the Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club Committee and has worked on it for over 50 years, whilst also competing internationally. He dedicated time to coach and support new members whilst also refereeing at club competitions. When the club moved to new premises in the 1980s, he assisted in its refurbishment for over two years.
He is an inspiration to young people and has brought pride to Bolton and across Lancashire and Greater Manchester and was made a life member of British Wrestling in June 2000.
Helen Louise SANDERSON MBE
Helen has devoted her career to person centred approaches. She has been one of the country’s leading contributors to the development of personalised care and support for older and disabled people. Her work is widely acknowledged as a blueprint for personalisation, informing the transformation of adult
social care. From co-authoring the first Department of Health guidance on person centred approaches in 2002, she has skilled up and trained thousands of workers and managers and helped numerous organisations to change and dramatically improve their services.
Her work has been adopted in many other countries including the USA, Canada, Australia and India. She regularly shares her knowledge; through the many books she has authored and via her community of collaborators.
Concerned about how ‘homecare’ in social care often poorly serves users and paid carers she has put enormous effort into developing and implementing a major new model, Wellbeing Teams. It is testament to her dedication and skill that, within a very short period, her first teams have been rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission.
She set up and is the CEO of the Community Circles charity supporting people in need or crisis by bringing two or more people together around them helping them to make the changes needed in their life in a way that works for them.
Helen has made a huge, positive difference to many thousands of people’s lives.
Kathryn Elizabeth DAVIES MBE
Kathryn, a key worker at the Cooperative Bank, threw herself into critical customer support during the Covid Pandemic. She has helped hundreds of customers who have found themselves in complex
financial situations and, during the early part of the lockdown, those stranded abroad and needing repatriation. She singlehandedly dealt with many priority cases ensuring customers had access to funds and were able to reach positions of safety.
In addition to undertaking this role to an exceptional level, she was flexible, helping colleagues in other parts of the bank, as the public’s needs changed in response to the pandemic. She helped to register many customers on to digital services, so they did not need to leave their homes and she also processed business loans and payment deferrals in response to the government’s support schemes. She is also considered as the “go to” person in the workplace, frequently first to support other workers who needed personal help or motivation.
In her own time, she volunteered to support NHS workers and patients across the country by organising and distributing care package donations from the bank’s employees. Care packages were sent to many hospitals in the North West, Staffordshire, Scotland and Wales. The care packages were individually tailored to help the specific needs of those locations. She was the absolute driving force behind the scheme. Kathryn has been a true Covid Hero.
Katie Elizabeth SPENCER MBE
Katie is a financial crime expert who led the work to protect the Government’s emergency Bounce Back Loan scheme against fraud. As a senior manager in Lloyds Banking Group’s Retail Bank Fraud and
Financial Crime team, and with billions of pounds of taxpayer funds at stake, she played a critical role in designing the measures that ensured the project was secure against fraudsters. Lloyds was given just a fortnight to build the system which would ordinarily take months. Schemes built at pace are often targeted by organised crime networks so developing a robust control framework was critical in preventing a huge fraud liability.
As an expert on lending frauds, she represented Lloyds Banking Group in industry meetings that agreed anti-fraud controls for the new scheme and common standards. Throughout, Katie and her team used innovation and imagination to test and develop solutions for fraud checks, working long hours, seven days a week, to meet the deadlines. This ensured that the day Bounce Back Loans were launched, Lloyds was able to safely distribute more than £1bn to its customers.
As a direct result of the work Katie led, over £140m of fraudulent applications were prevented and more than 250,000 customers have received in excess of £7.5bn in Bounce Back Loans from Lloyds Banking Group alone both protecting the UK taxpayer and helping to keep the economy afloat.
Janette Barr Anderson HOGAN MBE
Janette has devoted half a century to Nursing, championing Palliative and End of Life Care as a district nurse and as a community Macmillan nurse. Her role as clinical advisor enabled her to drive and support
a new service in North Manchester where end of life care was very poor in comparison to the national picture.
Identifying the causes, she presented a business case to the Manchester Clinical Commissioners Group to develop a consultant led, multidisciplinary team to deliver palliative services in patients’ homes rather than hospital. She secured funding from Macmillan, researched other services and came up with a model that would suit the population needs.
In 2015, the North Manchester Macmillan Palliative Care Support Service was launched, working in an innovative way to provide wrap around care for patients in the last year of their life and for their families. It was a huge success and even with the number of patients, using the service, vastly increasing, all were contacted within 24 hours of referral. Patients that have an advance care plan in place at the end of their life and pass away in their preferred place has risen phenomenally whilst numbers dying in hospital has considerably reduced. Permanent funding was secured, and the model is now being rolled out across the city, receiving national attention.
Janette’s work has enabled many people to concentrate on living their lives rather than worrying about their death.
Kiera Abigail BYLAND BEM
Kiera, known as KB, is an unstoppable force and a multi-talented leader and athlete who competes internationally in cycling and regionally in swimming. She is also a cycle and swim teacher and a
volunteer Special Olympics coach.
At the age of 12, with multiple learning difficulties, she was introduced to cycling and swimming and has since gone on to compete at the Special Olympics. Amongst her many sporting achievements, she won a gold medal in the 2014 Special Olympic Games in cycling and was a triple gold medallist in the 2015 Special Olympics GB cycling squad in Los Angeles. She also served as a co-host at the 2017 Special Olympics, Great Britain National Summer Games opening ceremony. She represents Great Britain on the Special Olympics Europe Eurasia Athlete Input Council as Chair and on the Athlete Leadership Council as Vice Chair.
Bullied and left out at school, she has been determined since to promote inclusivity and has made a huge, positive impact on the children in her hometown of Bolton giving them the confidence and inspiration to swim and cycle. She also produced and uploaded numerous fitness videos on-line helping people to stay fit during the pandemic. She has given a number of inspirational speeches at different conferences around the world where she displays her sheer determination and infectious enthusiasm.
She is an absolute inspiration to young people.
Eric Crompton BARBER BEM
For decades, Eric has made a profound impact on thousands of children in Rochdale, especially those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, sacrificing family time to serve as chair and vice chair of governors at Elm Wood School. His countless hours of unwavering but informed support has helped
lead the school, located in one of the most deprived and challenging areas.
As chair and link governor for SEND, he used his business management skills to accurately deploy financial resources significantly reducing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and others. Through his intervention, the school recruited a full set of SEND specialist teaching assistants increasing children’s skills in English and Maths.
He has been a significant figure in development of the building to fully meet the needs of the children. From a run down and uninspiring block, with regulations imposed by Historic England, he negotiated to keep both the architectural integrity of the building whilst significantly increasing the ‘fit for purpose’ learning areas. This transformation added extra classrooms and an envied outdoor area providing an oasis for pupils.
He also helped teachers set up a registered children’s charity, Leisure for Autism, which provides play schemes for children with Autistic Spectrum Condition. During Covid-19, his commitment to the school overruled concerns for his own health. He attended the school physically to meet with school leaders enabling a smooth reopening.
Harold Graham HEYWOOD BEM
Eira Margaret HEYWOOD BEM
Graham and Eira are co-founders of Bolton Adult Autism Support setting this up when their two autistic sons became adults and they recognised that there was no local provision for support. Initially funded by the council this was cut 10 months in and so they decided to go it alone initially holding a seminar
on autism, involving experts in the field, to help identify the unmet needs to be addressed by the group in the future. Through hard work and determination, they developed a constitution and governing body and earned charitable status. They forged ahead in attracting increasing numbers of adults with autism and have become a unique source of support.
They provide a social outlet where no one feels unusual or different because everyone there either has autism or they know a family member who has. Practical help and advice are also always available to help members who find it hard to articulate their issues and support is given to help them to argue or present their case.
They helped to form the Bolton Autism Strategy, one of the first in the country to do so and the Greater Manchester Autism Strategy and helped the police to develop procedures to help when an autistic adult is taken into custody.
Volunteer led from top to bottom the trust was awarded with a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2020 which is of huge credit to the dedication of its founders Graham and Eira.
Kenneth Alan Edward TAYLOR BEM
Kenneth is a drama writer, manager, director and actor. He has received numerous plaudits for all his roles but is best and most affectionally known for having played the Pantomime Dame for thirty years in his own productions at Nottingham Playhouse. He was described in The Stage in 2014, as one of the UK’s
foremost pantomime writers and directors. His television credits are extensive, from Coronation Street in the 1960s to Grange Hill, Cold Feet and Heartbeat amongst others. He was also Artistic Director and then Chief Executive of Oldham Coliseum Theatre in the 1990s.
He began his hugely successful career doing amateur theatricals, aged 14, in London. He moved on from the Kinloch Players, performing in village halls, to regional repertory as an actor, reaching the Oldham Coliseum in 1959 where he performed everything from Shakespeare to Agatha Christie and excelled in his first pantomime. After arguing with the director one year, he was told: ‘If you can do any better, then write one!’ and the rest is history.
In 2019, Kenneth presented his 37th consecutive and last panto at Nottingham Playhouse, receiving a 5 star review describing it as nothing short of a masterclass in how to do panto that genuinely works for the whole family and even had a bus named after him.
He has entertained hundreds of thousands if not millions of people during his hugely successful career.
Qamar NAWAZ BEM
As the Bramhall Co-op Food Store Manager, Qamar was instrumental in leading his local community’s response to the COVID-19 crisis making the store a central beacon of support. He brought the local community together to support key workers, the elderly and the vulnerable throughout the pandemic
setting up the Bramhall Helping Hand Group which amassed over 1,700 volunteers supporting a community covering hundreds of streets.
The local food bank faced increasing demand and so he made the store a drop off point for donations. Many of the community were keen to support the foodbank but were locked down so he went out to them to collect donations all with a creative twist! Dressed up as Spiderman with a ‘Spidey Squad’ of Helping Hand Group volunteers, he visited homes and collected the food donations and played games with any children through their windows; this absolutely made their day. His hard work and leadership resulted in £15,000 worth of food donations and £8,000 being raised for the food bank.
He led the delivery of ‘Caring Cuppa Kits’, brightening up the day of many elderly residents, isolated during the crisis and delivered vital food shopping and prescriptions to vulnerable customers. He also connected with Store Managers in the wider area, and co-ordinated the donation of Easter Eggs to key-workers, at the local Hospital.
Qamar is a model of a community champion
Heather Angela SHEPHERD BEM
Initially as the Covid virus outbreak took hold in UK, it was evident that the arrangements and systems in place for operating Tameside East Foodbank’s three-centre operation and warehousing facility were unsustainable. The service was suspended pending review against the emergent government guidelines.
As a Coordinator, Heather was determined from the outset that the single most important priority was to re-open the service in a safe and effective manner. Due to her tenacity and leadership the service was reopened within two weeks, having completely restructured its operation to centrally integrate the three centres and warehouse to both receive and distribute food to those desperately in need.
She showed incredible adaptability and creativity during a time of challenge and change which included a fifty percent increase in demand for the service. She used her dynamic leadership skills to develop partnerships with the local council, voluntary sector organisations, supermarkets, funding agencies and food delivery drivers; all of which were necessary in establishing new systems, arrangements and approaches for delivering the service.
She enabled the service to continue its vital work and in 2021 it handled over 39,500 Kg of food, feeding more than 1850 children and providing 3 day emergency food supplies to nearly 5000 people.
She did this, without concern for her own welfare and whilst home schooling two children. Heather is a huge credit to the Foodbank service.
Catherine Theresa KILDAY BEM
Catherine is a highly energetic supporter of numerous charities raising thousands of pounds and encouraging others to do the same; her infectious enthusiasm engages everybody around her including her work colleagues.
She is an inspiring team member at the South Manchester Jobcentre, demonstrating warmth and interest in customers and enormous enthusiasm for her role supporting customers with health and disability issues into work. She leads on jobcentre work with a local food bank, volunteering her free time in their warehouse. She is the highly active representative on the District People Group and the DWP’s social event organisation and has earned the reputation of being a “Super Mentor” constantly thinking of and motivating others around her. She raised money for a local hospital that had cared for a colleague’s daughter after they had a heart attack, and her Jobcentre has raised over £3000 in the last few years through activities she instigated and organised.
She organised a staff event knitting over 100 Manchester bees to sell and as the country went into lockdown, she undertook a virtual marathon at home donating money raised to Papyrus UK, a charity helping to prevent suicide in young people. She also undertook a 60 mile dog walk to raise funds for Cancer Research UK. A tireless baker, she also raises funds via frequent cake sales.
Catherine is an altruistic fundraiser, genuinely caring about everyone around her.
Sarah Jane Casey BEM
Sarah is a committed, passionate community hero who works tirelessly to improve the lives of the residents of Hulme. Since 1980 she has been involved with the Tenants and Residents Association where she has been the constant, working with several generations of councillors and officials, ensuring the
safety of the residents is at the forefront of their minds.
She regularly tours her estate reporting antisocial and criminal activity, arranging litter picks, and keeping an eye on the most vulnerable residents. When the local policing team let her know about increases in crime, she quickly organised a community response to help, such as organising a theatre company to perform a play on burglary to highlight the issues around it.
She was instrumental in setting up a Mobility class which is regularly attended by more than 20 people, aged between 60-80, improving their physical and social welfare. In 2014, she engaged a professional artist to run a weekly art class. It has been a highlight for many and some attendees travel from outside the area which shows the extent of her impact.
In 2017, she was elected as a Chair for the Hulme and Moss Side Age Friendly Partnership which aims to reduce social isolation in the community. She has been a key asset, organising trips and Tai Chi for the elderly and play-schemes for children.
Without doubt she has made her community an inclusive, safe place to live.
