A shock when I looked at the honours list on Saturday, but a very nice one. Wilson Harris has been given a knighthood.
What took them so long – he is 89 years old & to be honest one of those people I rather assumed must have died. I wonder how many people have had to wait until his age to earn a knighthood, & how many people older than he have been awarded any sort of honour this time round. (Come to think of it, Doris Lessing was almost that old when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but there is only one of them awarded each year.)
This knighthood did not get any extra publicity in the London papers or on the BBC as far as I am aware. Nor did the OBE for Wendy Cope, though Simon Armitage was interviewed about his CBE.
In years gone by I might quite often have read through the whole of the honours list, just to see if there was anyone I knew, or knew of, on there. Of course in my Whitehall days there was a kind of professional interest in seeing who was up & who was not – there were subtle interpretations to who got what. That kind of pay & rations approach is used much less these days, but there is still some interest, so because I had started & because it was all legibly laid out in The Times this year I went down the list, at least as far as the OBEs.
The category ‘for political & public service’ usually given to long serving MPs seems to have gone out of use, though there are a few awards this time ‘for public service’ only, without any further explanation.
One category which has always intrigued me was that of civilians from the Ministry of Defence, no details other than name & grade – civil servants from other departments usually carry some indication of their actual job. There are still some on there - Grade B1 or B2. Those mean absolutely nothing to me but there is a little voice inside which always says Aha! Must be a spy
What took them so long – he is 89 years old & to be honest one of those people I rather assumed must have died. I wonder how many people have had to wait until his age to earn a knighthood, & how many people older than he have been awarded any sort of honour this time round. (Come to think of it, Doris Lessing was almost that old when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but there is only one of them awarded each year.)
This knighthood did not get any extra publicity in the London papers or on the BBC as far as I am aware. Nor did the OBE for Wendy Cope, though Simon Armitage was interviewed about his CBE.
In years gone by I might quite often have read through the whole of the honours list, just to see if there was anyone I knew, or knew of, on there. Of course in my Whitehall days there was a kind of professional interest in seeing who was up & who was not – there were subtle interpretations to who got what. That kind of pay & rations approach is used much less these days, but there is still some interest, so because I had started & because it was all legibly laid out in The Times this year I went down the list, at least as far as the OBEs.
The category ‘for political & public service’ usually given to long serving MPs seems to have gone out of use, though there are a few awards this time ‘for public service’ only, without any further explanation.
One category which has always intrigued me was that of civilians from the Ministry of Defence, no details other than name & grade – civil servants from other departments usually carry some indication of their actual job. There are still some on there - Grade B1 or B2. Those mean absolutely nothing to me but there is a little voice inside which always says Aha! Must be a spy
Links
Stabroek News - Wilson Harris knighted
DREAM, PSYCHE, GENESIS : The Works of Wilson Harris
Wendy Cope - Poetry Archive
You like my poems? So pay for them
Download Queen's Birthday Honours List 2010 (PDF, 296K)
Stabroek News - Wilson Harris knighted
DREAM, PSYCHE, GENESIS : The Works of Wilson Harris
Wendy Cope - Poetry Archive
You like my poems? So pay for them
Download Queen's Birthday Honours List 2010 (PDF, 296K)
