The first New Year Honours List of King Charles’s reign includes more than half a dozen people from Brighton and Hove.
Those recognised include an accident and emergency (A&E) doctor, a football club boss and a long-serving hospital volunteer.
The most high-profile name on the list is Paul Barber, 55, the chief executive of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club. Mr Barber, who also the club’s deputy chair, becomes an OBE for services to football.
He said: “I was quite shocked. It’s humbling because it’s for services to football which is a team sport – and I’ve always been part of a team from when I was young and playing football to being part of a professional environment in my working life.
“I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have without the teams I’ve had around me.”
Four members of the England’s women’s football team who played two games at the Amex, in Falmer, during the Euros in July, have also been honoured.
The Lionesses went on to win the tournament and captain Leah Williamson has been made an OBE while Lucy Bronze, Beth Mead and Ellen White all become MBEs.
The team’s Dutch head coach Sarina Wiegman was also made a CBE on the overseas list.
A Brighton doctor is also on the overseas list for services to UK health support overseas, particularly in Ukraine, and during the covid-19 pandemic.
Paul Ransom, 52, a consultant in emergency medicine at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, has been made an OBE for his humanitarian work.
Dr Ransom has spent 20 years working in Brighton while also taking on teaching work and serving as a “flying doctor” on an air ambulance helicopter.
He has spent time in conflict zones with a number of organisations, including UK-Med, the HALO Trust (Hazardous Area Life-support Organisation), a de-mining organisation, and the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross).
In the past two years, Dr Ransom has worked with UK-Med in Haiti after an earthquake, in a covid hospital in Armenia and in eastern Ukraine where he spent three months with mobile medical teams and training emergency workers.
One of his A&E colleagues at the Royal Sussex, a long-serving volunteer, also featured in the latest honours list.
Doris Margaret Garton, known as Bidge, has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to volunteering.
Bidge Garton, 90, started volunteering on a ward in 1983 and moved to A&E the following year where she continued to help people until the great-grandmother finally retired last year.
She was described by one colleague as “nothing short of a legend” while tributes from patients and relatives that she comforted included “amazing”, “a life-saver” and “an angel of the night”.
Mrs Garton said: “I feel so lucky and privileged not just to have received this honour but for the memories and dear friends I have made during the years I volunteered at the hospital. I can honestly say I have gained more than I have given.”
A Brighton charity founder has been made an MBE on the overseas list for services to education in Tanzania.
Sylvia Goodall, 86, set up the Goodall Foundation with her son Andrew after falling in love with the Ngorongoro region and the Maasai people during a safari holiday in Tanzania in 2006.
The Goodall Foundation supports vulnerable and underprivileged children in Wasso, in the Arusha region, close to the border with Kenya.
Mrs Goodall worked alongside her children, including her son, Andrew, who ran Brighton Marina for many years, to make a difference on the ground.
They have sponsored teachers, built classrooms and a new government school and made a significant and positive difference to the lives of local people.
After learning of her award, Mrs Goodall said: “I felt overwhelmed and couldn’t believe it. It’s so exciting – a huge honour for me and all my family and friends, here and in Tanzania.
“I’ve met so many wonderful people. It’s been a joy. The charity has worked tirelessly alongside the Maasai community to provide meaningful and long-lasting improvements to education.”
Brighton University governor John Gill, 74, has been made an MBE for services to the arts, to culture and to education.
Mr Gill, who holds a degree from Sussex University and London University, joined Brighton’s board of governors in 2016. He is also a member of the joint board of Brighton and Sussex Medical School. In 2015-16 he was a visiting research fellow at Harvard.
He has held numerous posts in arts organisations and just in the local area he has chaired the boards of Photoworks, the Brighton Photo Biennial, Lighthouse and the Westgate Trust.
Robyn Catherine Knox, partnership director at the Voluntary Community Sector Emergencies Partnership, has been appointed an MBE for services to charity and to communities affected by major emergencies. She was also the co-founder of the Gender Equality Network at the British Red Cross.
A former Sussex University academic has been made an OBE for services to literature. Kimberley Griffith Reynolds, 67, completed her doctoral research in 19th-century juvenile fiction at Sussex.
Kimberley Reynolds went on to become professor of children’s literature at Newcastle University and established the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature.
The chief fire officer of East Sussex, Dawn Elaine Whittaker, has been awarded the King’s Fire Service Medal.
Dawn Whittaker, 55, joined East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service as the deputy chief fire officer in 2016 and was promoted to the top job the following year. Last year she became chair of the UK National Water Safety Forum.
And a former Sussex Police officer has been appointed an OBE for services to policing. Temporary Commander David Lawes led the operation at the City of London Police after the death of the Queen in September.
