Four locals named in this years Queen’s Birthday Honours List

The British Empire Medal

A selection of incredible people from the Rochdale borough have been named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours Lists 2020.

This list, which was due to be published earlier this year in June, was postponed in order to consider nominations for people playing crucial roles during the first months of the Covid-19 effort. 

Recognising the outstanding achievements and services of people across the United Kingdom from all backgrounds, four people from the Rochdale borough have been honoured this year.

42-year-old Damian Antony Edwards from Middleton was granted The British Empire Medal (BEM) for his services to the community of Alkrington during the Covid-19 lockdown.

BEM is a British medal awarded for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to replace the original medal, which had been established in 1917 as part of the Order of the British Empire.

Mr Edwards has run and owned the General Store on Mount Road, the local greengrocer’s shop in Alkrington Garden Village, for 23 years since he was 19 years old. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he kept his shop open and provided a phone delivery service throughout - delivering to nursing homes and the wider area covering some 50 miles.

As he runs the shop on his own, Mr Edwards has been working round the clock during the crisis to make sure his community does not go without. By day, he operates the shop and stocks the shelves and by night, he provides the essential service of delivering goods to those who are vulnerable and self-isolating.

As well as this, he has been live streaming what he buys at warehouses on social media groups, so customers know what he has got in.

He has also let another local business owner, who sells bedding plants, sell his stock at the shop as otherwise the plants would all have died.

Others named at BEM level include Home Manager at Four Seasons Healthcare Helen McMahon, also from Middleton, for her services to care homes during Covid-19, as well as Stephen Walthall and Margaret Gail Walthall from Heywood for their voluntary services to scouting in Heywood.

Anyone can nominate someone for a Queen's birthday honour, as long as they are still actively involved in what you’re nominating them for. Whether someone gets an honour - and the honour they get - is decided by an honours committee, whose recommendations go to the Prime Minister and then to the Queen, who awards the honour.

To view the full Queen's Birthday Honours List 2020, which includes household names such as Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford, Coronation Street star Maureen Lipman and gender-based violence campaigner Hera Hussain, visit:

• www.gov.uk/government/collections/birthday-honours-lists-2020