The professor who led opposition to Margaret Thatcher receiving an honorary degree from Oxford University is among 16 Oxfordshire people in the Queen's Birthday Honours List announced today.

Prof Denis Noble, Oxford University Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology, who has received many awards for his heart research work, wins a CBE for services to science.

In 1985, he led the campaign which ended in Oxford dons snubbing the then Prime Minister and refusing to give her a degre in protest at her education policies.

Knighthoods go to barrister and playwright John Mortimer, 75, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, who lives near Henley, for services to the arts, and to Dr Peter Williams, 53, chairman of Oxford Instru- ments, for services to science and technology. The Oxford Instruments group, which started in a garage in the 1960s, now has a £140m a year turnover and employs 1,600 people worldwide.

CBEs go to Prof Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Politics and Government at Oxford University and Fellow of Brasenose College, for services to constitutional history; Dr Muir Gray, director of research and development for the Anglia and Oxford health region, who lives in Oxford; Dr Schuyler Jones, who retired last year after 12 years as curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; and John Leighfield, chairman of the Alliance of Information System Skills Group, who lives in Oxford. Two Oxfordshire people win OBEs - Jane Binyon, head of the Health and Safety Executive's personnel strategy, policy and guidance unit, who lives in Oxford, and Madeleine McDonagh, manager of the National Environmental Technology Centre at AEA Technology, for services to oil spill research.

Michael Watkinson, of Bampton, who has run youth services in Oxfordshire for 24 years, firstly as secretary of the Oxfordshire Association of Boys Clubs and latterly with its successor, the Oxfordshire Association for Young People, is honoured with the MBE. A similar award goes to former meals-on-wheels organiser Helen Gilbert, 76, for services to the community at Woodstock where she lives. She ran the Women's Royal Voluntary Service in Oxfordshire and is still busy, as a volunteer for Victim Support and organiser of a fortnightly lunch club at Woodstock.

Other new MBEs include Brenda Boardman, of Oxford, honoured for services to energy efficiency; Denise Goff, of Oxford, for services to the Board of Visitors at HM Prison, Bullingdon, and to visitor training; Gretl Hallwood, of Abingdon, deputy chief executive of Young Enterprise UK, for services to young people; Bryan Massen, of Banbury, secretary of the National Association of Valuation Tribunals; and Rowland Raynor, senior technician for the Environment Agency in Oxfordshire, for services to the River Thames environment.

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