Queen's birthday honours recognise famous names and private deeds
Saturday, 16 June 2007
Print
Email
Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after a fatwa was issued against him, has been given a knighthood for services to literature.
Rushdie said he was "thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour", adding: "I'm very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way."
The Satanic Verses was condemned by some Muslims as blasphemous and it provoked the Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa in 1989. Copies of the book were burnt on the streets in Britain and abroad.
Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai, rose to fame after his novel Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. It went on to win the Booker of Bookers in 1993, when it was voted the best winner of the literary prize in the 25 years since its inception.
Rushdie's latest novel, Shalimar The Clown, was long-listed for the Booker, but Midnight's Children is still widely regarded as his greatest work.
His literary career began inauspiciously in advertising, where he came up with the cream cakes slogan "naughty but nice".
Rushdie was not the only surprise in this year's honours list. Barry Humphries, known to most as his television alter ego Dame Edna Everage, has been appointed CBE for services to entertainment. The Australian comedian, who settled in London in the 1960s, has kept his cross-dressing stage character of Dame Edna going since the Fifties.
The Glastonbury mastermind Mike Eavis was also honoured. The 71-year-old Methodist dairy farmer, who established the music festival in 1970, has always shunned establishment values. But now the anti-nuclear campaigner has been created a CBE for services to music.
Also appointed a CBE today is the historian and broadcaster David Starkey. As an academic at LSE, his greatest contribution to Tudor research was an exploration of the social etiquette of Henry VIII's household. But it is Dr Starkey's popular television series, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Monarchy, which are credited with making history accessible.
The Leeds-born romance writer Barbara Taylor Bradford proves that you do not need to be an academic to be acknowledged for services to literature. Taylor Bradford, who has been created an OBE, now lives in New York and is known for her light, salacious novels. She has written two highly successful series, the Emma Harte Saga and the Deravenel Trilogy, which have sold more than 70 million copies, making her the biggest selling female author of the past 25 years.
The screenwriter, director and playwright Stephen Poliakoff was appointed a CBE. He was awarded an Emmy for his film The Lost Prince and a Prix Italia for his series Perfect Strangers.
Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace, the plasticine man in the Wallace and Gromit films, has been appointed an OBE for services to drama. He is also known for playing the part of Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine. The Dad's Army star Bill Pertwee also features in the honours list, but his MBE is not for his performance in the classic television series, but for charitable services.
Also acknowledged with a CBE is the CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, for services to journalism. She established herself at the channel with her coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, and went on to work as a war correspondent all over the world. She is now based in London and continues to cover international conflicts.
Fashion: Betty Jackson's designs earn her CBE
By Susie Rushton
London Fashion Week is notorious for celebrating the youngest and the most shocking designers, whether or not they have the business acumen to turn their catwalk creations into saleable goods. Betty Jackson, who has been created CBE, is the exception to the rule.
For 25 years Jackson has built up an independent designer-label business and a faithful following of fans for her simple silhouettes, luxurious knitwear and painterly prints. Despite success, Jackson, 57, is not one for flowery pronouncements on the meaning of her collections. "Clothes should do a job for you," she recently told The Independent. "They should be a tool. You've got to be able to shove something on and forget about it."
Originally from Lancashire, Jackson worked for the Seventies design legend Ossie Clarke after obtaining a fashion degree. In 1981 she launched her own label with her husband, David Cohen, as business partner. Just four years later she was named British Designer of the Year. Faithful to London's catwalks, Jackson has a flagship store in South Kensington and is also known for the collection she designs for Debenhams, Betty Jackson Black.
The hairdresser to royalty and rock stars Nicky Clarke has been created OBE. Clarke, whose clients have included George Michael and Sarah Ferguson, began training in 1975. By 1988, he was named Session Hairdresser of the Year. "I simply do not believe that anyone needs to have a 'bad hair day' - ever," Clarke, who himself has a distinctive honey-hued mane, has said.
Joe Corre and Serena Rees, founders of the lingerie company Agent Provocateur, have been appointed MBEs. Naughty knickers weren't fashionable until the pair opened their first shop in Soho in 1994. Agent Provocateur has since transformed the underwear market with their beribboned bras, lace corsets, whips and adhesive nipple-covers nicknamed "pasties".
Today the brand includes books, shoes, jewellery and award-winning fragrances. Corre, the son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, once explained the formula for Agent Provocateur's success to The Independent: "Everything we put in our stores, we personally like. We don't do things because we think it's really commercial or it's the latest colour."
