Head of MI5 Ken McCallum has been knighted and artist Barbara Rae has been made a dame in some of the highest honours awarded to Scots in this year’s New Year Honours list.
Broadcaster and presenter Jackie Bird and former footballer Alan Hansen are among Scots who have been honoured this year, as well as Olympian Duncan Scott.
Sir Ken, who grew up in Glasgow and has a maths degree from Glasgow University, was appointed director general of MI5 in April 2020, having formerly been deputy director general with responsibility for all of the security service’s operational and investigative work.
He led the strategic response to the 2017 terrorist attacks in Manchester and London and to the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury 2018.
Mr McCallum has more than 25 years’ experience working for MI5 and began his career with 10 years focused on Northern Ireland-related terrorism.
Painter and printmaker Dame Barbara studied at Edinburgh College of Art and went on to teach art in secondary schools then lecture at Aberdeen College of Education and Glasgow School of Art.
Her work has been shown around the world in both group and solo exhibitions, including at venues in Chicago, New York, Washington, Santa Fe, Oslo, Hong Kong, Dublin and Belfast.
She said she was “lost for words” after being told of being awarded a damehood for services to art and said it is unlikely to change her work and she will still be putting on her “paint-splattered overalls” to create in her studio each day.
She told the PA news agency: “I was in my painting studio and received a call from a woman with a lovely Irish accent, calling from the UK Cabinet Office.
“She had been searching for me for months; her office had an old address, years out of date. Her accent and politeness stopped me from replacing the receiver assuming it a scam.
“When I realised it was a genuine phone call, I was lost for words – only momentarily.”
Asked how she feels about the honour, she said: “When recommendation comes from peers and friends, it’s an honour that one can hardly refuse.”
Journalist Jackie Bird, who was the face of BBC Scotland News for three decades, is being recognised for her services to broadcasting and charities.
The 62-year-old has been presenting BBC Scotland’s Children in Need show for years and has been the president of the National Trust for Scotland since 2019.
“I’m thrilled,” she told the PA news agency, “absolutely surprised and thrilled.
“My first thought was, ‘I can take my mum and dad to Buckingham Palace’.”
Scotland’s most decorated Olympian, Duncan Scott, from Stirling, becomes an OBE for services to swimming. He has eight Olympic medals following this year’s Games, where he claimed his eighth Olympic medal by taking silver in the men’s 200 metres individual medley final in Paris, following his gold in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
He already had a gold and five silvers from the Rio and Tokyo Olympics.
Alan Hansen is being made an MBE for services to football and to broadcasting. He played football for Partick Thistle and Liverpool before retiring and becoming a TV pundit.
He was born in Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, on June 13 1955.
Campaigner William Wright has been made an OBE in this year’s honours for his services to people with bleeding disorders.
He was chairman of Haemophilia Scotland for 12 years and was described as the “driving force” behind its representation at the Infected Blood Inquiry and the prior Penrose Inquiry in Scotland.
More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with deadly viruses after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s.
About 3,000 people died as a result and survivors are living with lifelong health implications.
Mr Wright said: “The main thing I’m particularly pleased about is the recognition for the issues that I’ve been involved in, which was the infected blood disaster which, in particular, seriously affected the community of people with bleeding disorders.
“That story continues and I think it’s really important to emphasise that this story is not over.
“The recommendations of the public inquiry into infected blood are yet to be really met and that includes for example compensation to thousands of individuals, and that is taking a lot of time.”
Also becoming an MBE is retired solicitor Gordon Hay, given the honour for services to the promotion of the Doric language, which is spoken in north-east Scotland.
He spent 17 years translating the New Testament and then the Old Testament into Doric, the first time the whole text has ever been changed into any variant of the Scots language.
The Old Testament translation was published last year while the New Testament version came out in 2012, comprising more than 800,000 words between them.
He said: “I am absolutely delighted and greatly honoured.”
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