Three people from the Great Yarmouth borough featured on the Queen’s birthday honours list announced last night.
Hugh Sturzaker was made an MBE for services to health and community in Great Yarmouth.
The retired consultant surgeon and lead governor at the James Paget NHS Foundation Trust described being made an MBE as an honour for Yarmouth as much as himself.
He described his honour as a total surprise and was quick to deflect any glory to those who had helped him over the years both as a distinguished surgeon and in the charity and arts field.
He said: “I feel very honoured, but when I look around the town I see so many other people who really deserve it more. Most things you do as part of a team. In hospitals you depend on nurses, theatre staff, porters, secretaries – you cannot really do things without them.
“It is the same with charities: you depend on volunteers and so many people.
“The honour is for Yarmouth, really. The perception of Yarmouth is really not good and we have to improve it because there is so much here.”
Mr Sturzaker worked at the JPH for 26 years, carrying out 39,000 operations, launching numerous appeals and being credited with a number of “firsts”, bringing new equipment and clinics to the borough.
Since 1996, Mr Sturzaker, 75, has worked tirelessly for the Great Yarmouth Minster, the largest parish church in England. He is vice-chairman of the Preservation Trust where he has helped to raise over £500,000 to maintain the fabric of the building.
In 2012, he launched an ambitious arts festival and has just brought down the curtain on the fourth successful effort helping to put Yarmouth on the map and to champion its heritage assets.
Jean Lindsay has received a British Empire Medal for services to the community in Great Yarmouth.
The leading tourism figure said receiving the medal had not yet sunk in, and she initially thought the whole thing was a hoax.
Mrs Lindsay, 83, made her name running Clippesby Hall Holiday Camping with her late husband, Jock, from the late 1960s.
Along with this, Mrs Lindsay has dedicated more than 50 years to St Peter’s Church.
Many of those years have been spent as churchwarden, volunteering her time to keep the building in tip-top condition.
She said: “Things like that don’t happen to people like me.
“I think really this is to do with what I do in the village and the church.”
She was instrumental in a successful Big Lottery Fund bid for the church last year.
Glenda Tooke also received a British Empire Medal for her services to the community in Rollesby.
The 61-year-old has been a devoted fundraiser for more than 30 years.
She said: “I was really amazed when I received my letter in April telling me. My husband opened it and I thought he was lying at first.
“I told my daughter and local minister as I knew they would keep quiet but it was really hard not to tell anyone else.”
Her work has seen her raise money for methodist churches for three decades in her role as treasurer of East Norfolk Methodist Circuit.
She has raised money through a large amount of money through tea and coffee mornings, quizzes, fetes and more.
She is also known for her collection of 1,000 Christmas trees which she puts on display to raise money.
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