Tamara Mellon a Choo-in for an honour

Published on Friday 11 June 2010 23:12

TAMARA Mellon, the entrepreneur behind the shoe brand Jimmy Choo, receives an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Along with her, Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones, who already has an Oscar on her mantelpiece, has been made a CBE.

With England taking on the United States tonight in their opening World Cup match in South Africa, the Queen is recognising Bert Williams, 90, the goalkeeper in England's startling defeat by the Americans in 1950, with an MBE.

A glittering array of entertainers and sports players are recognised for their achievements, including Amy Williams, Britain's first solo Winter Olympics gold medallist in 30 years.

Coronation Street stars past and present are honoured in the soap's 50th year, with awards for Eileen Derbyshire, Barbara Knox and Anne Reid.

Honours also go to former Velvet Underground musician John Cale, and Help for Heroes founders Bryn and Emma Parry. There are MBEs for Dr Frank Duckworth and Dr Tony Lewis, the statisticians who came up with the arcane Duckworth-Lewis Method used to calculate run targets in one-day cricket matches affected by rain.

Leading footballing figures recognised include Gary Speed, the long-serving former Premier League midfielder and Wales captain, who is made an MBE, and Sunderland ex-chairman Bob Murray, who is knighted.

Mike Ingham, chief football correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live is made an MBE and Hope Powell, coach of the England women's football team is a CBE.

Jockey Tony McCoy, winner of this year's Grand National, becomes an OBE. Amy Williams, 27, from Bath, who struck gold in Vancouver in February when she won the skeleton bob and became Britain's first individual Winter Olympics gold medallist since 1980, becomes an MBE.

OBEs go to John Nettles, star of TV series Midsomer Murders, and Sophie Okonedo, Oscar-nominated for Hotel Rwanda.

Prue Leith and Marguerite Patten, who helped teach generations of Britons to cook, are CBEs.

Among writers, an OBE goes to best-selling horror author James Herbert, 67, and popular poet Simon Armitage, 47, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, becomes a CBE. Knighthoods are awarded to South African-born playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood, 75, who won an Oscar for his script for 2002's The Pianist, and Guyana-born novelist Wilson Harris, 89.

James Herbert, who during the late 1970s wrote titles such as The Fog and Lair, said: "It was a total shock. I saw the envelope from the Cabinet Office and I thought 'whoops, what have I done now?' I had to read it twice to take it in'."

There are OBEs for Professor Brian Cox, the pop star-turned physicist who has presented BBC science programmes, Mellon, founder and creative director of Jimmy Choo, and writer and broadcaster Bonnie Greer, who put BNP leader Nick Griffin on the spot in the controversial BBC Question Time in October.

Zeta Jones, 40, was born in Swansea in 1969 and appeared in stage productions including Annie and Bugsy Malone as a child before winning parts in West End shows. She made her breakthrough in Hollywood as Elena Montero in 1998's The Mask Of Zorro. Her greatest success to date was her performance in 2002's Chicago, as vampish killer Velma Kelly, for which she won the best supporting actress Oscar.

Bert Williams, from Shifnal, Shropshire, signed to Walsall FC as a schoolboy goalkeeper at 15 but his career was interrupted by service in the Second World War. He joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 1945.

His first England cap came in May 1949, and six months later he went on to play in a 2-0 win over Italy that earned him the nickname "The Cat" for his spectacular saves. But this was overshadowed by the US's astonishing 1-0 victory over England in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil.

Of the Coronation Street actresses honoured, Derbyshire, 78, who plays church-going Emily Bishop, joined the show in 1961 and is its second longest-serving actor. Knox, 76, has been Rita Sullivan since 1964. Reid, 75, played Ken Barlow's wife Valerie Tatlock in the soap from 1961 to 1971, and later appeared in Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies.

Former soldier Bryn Parry and his wife Emma are made OBEs for their work supporting British servicemen and women injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have raised more than 50 million since being inspired to form Help for Heroes in October 2007 by meeting wounded troops at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham.

Sir Chris Bonington, 75, becomes a commander of the Royal Victorian Order in his capacity as deputy patron of the Outward Bound Trust.

As is customary, three quarters of the awards in the honours list go to unsung local heroes. They include MBEs for Philip Kelsall, resident organist at Blackpool Tower; Susan Gibbs, an announcer at Fenchurch Street station in London; and James Fitchie, from Newtownards, County Down, who is honoured for services to ploughing in Northern Ireland.