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A TEAM OF British divers who helped save a junior football team stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand were awarded in Britain’s traditional New Year Honours alongside former supermodel Twiggy and Monty Python’s Michael Palin.
The seven underwater specialists involved in the remarkable rescue were also joined on the prestigious annual achievement list – announced yesterday – by Hollywood filmmaker Christopher Nolan, Jim Carter from Downton Abbey, best-selling author Philip Pullman and leading Brexiteer lawmaker John Redwood.
Former Irish rugby player Willie John McBride won a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to rugby, he said that he viewed the honour as “belonging to all his teammates”.
Gráinne Ní Aodha / TwitterMad ending to an interview on @TodaySOR there where Tory MP John Redwood accuses O'Rourke of insulting France and then goes "Anyways nice to talk to you, thank you, goodbye" and hangs up.
— Gráinne Ní Aodha (@GNiAodha) November 23, 2018
O'Rourke: "Does that mean you don't want to talk to me? Oh, he's gone." #TodaySOR #Brexit
Four of the divers were given awards for exceptional bravery while the three others were made Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE).
Richard Stanton and John Volanthen – the first of the divers to reach the 12 stricken children and their coach – were awarded the George Medal, the country’s second highest civilian gallantry award.
Stanton had already been made an MBE in 2012 for his rescue services.
Fellow divers Christopher Jewell and Jason Mallinson receive the Queen’s Gallantry Medal, while Joshua Bratchley, Connor Roe and Vernon Unsworth were decorated with MBEs.
“For me, after saving the boys, this is the icing on the cake,” said Unsworth, who has also risen in fame after suing Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk for labelling him “pedo guy”.
“This was a team effort and I’m very honoured to have been recognised, particularly as you don’t engage in a major rescue expecting this outcome,” he added.
‘It makes me giggle’
Sixties it-girl Lesley Lawson, better known as Twiggy, receives a damehood for services to fashion following a decades-spanning career modelling, singing and acting.
The 69-year-old told Britain’s Press Association that the recognition was “wonderful, but it makes me giggle”.
“The hardest thing has been keeping it a secret,” she said.
Acclaimed director Nolan, an Oscar nominee this year for Dunkirk – as well as in 2011 for Inception and in 2002 for Memento – gets a CBE for services to film.
After graduating from low-budget independent movies, he has directed some of the biggest blockbusters ever made – including several Batman films – and become renowned for his technical and narrative daring.
Pullman, the creator of the hugely successful His Dark Materials trilogy, receives a knighthood for services to literature.
The 72-year-old said he was “very surprised and honoured” by the acknowledgement.
“I’m most grateful of all to those who continue to read my books, and I hope they don’t have to work as hard as those who edit them,” Pullman added.
Brexiteer wins knighthood
Palin, 75, becomes the first of Monty Python’s revered comedy cast to receive a knighthood.
The veteran actor, who has reinvented himself as a travel documentary maker and writer in later life, gets a knighthood for his international contributions to travel, culture and geography.
He said news of the accolade had yet to sink in. “I don’t think it will be until I see the envelopes addressing me as Sir Michael Palin,” he added.
Meanwhile, as Britain prepares to leave the European Union in March after decades of membership, John Redwood – one of parliament’s most prominent eurosceptics – was made a knight.
Redwood was part of a group of eurosceptics who plotted to bring down the government of former Conservative prime minister John Major, who called them the “bastards”.
The veteran Conservative lawmaker – a vocal opponent of Prime Minister Theresa May’s draft Brexit deal, set to be voted on in mid-January – was among three MPs awarded knighthoods.
There had been speculation this year’s honours could be deployed to try to win support for May’s plan – but it appears unlikely with Redwood.
Earlier this week he published a blog outlining “eight things wrong with the withdrawal agreement”.
In sport, England football manager Gareth Southgate was awarded an OBE, while captain Harry Kane received an MBE following the team’s memorable run to the World Cup semi-finals in Russia.
Overall, 1,148 recipients were named in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2019 New Year Honours List.
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The swedish are right why should we have a fed like bank in the EU?
They are certainly right from their point of view their not even in the euro, its regulation we need rather than rescue. Noone knows this better than the Swedes having had their own banking crash in the 90′s
Because proper banking supervision may well have helped prevent some of the property bubble and most if not all of the banking crash.
you should read the article again its not about regulation its about having an organization that contols how are taxes are spent but isnt under control of any goverment.
I have to agree with the swedes. They have a great country- why should they allow themselves to be dragged down by other countries.
Good man, Anders. Just tell them “resistance is futile.”
Yeh right when they get EU money then is everything ok. But when they have to pay they against it.
Everyone wants a European
Union which favours their national self interest , that’s why it doesn’t work , scrap it and let’s get real.
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