New Year Honours 2022: Yorkshire's everyday pandemic heroes who have been given MBE and British Empire Medals

This year MBE gongs and the British Empire Medal have gone to ordinary people as well as civic dignitaries and business leaders.

They include a hotel manager from Wetherby who persuaded the Best Western chain to give its space over to the NHS for extra Covid-19 wards and a Rotherham Council catering manager who organised meals for vulnerable children when schools were closed.

The co-founder of Bradford Literature Festival, an inspirational coach who runs Hull's oldest boxing club and a dance teacher in her 80s who gave free Zoom classes during lockdown are also honoured.

Two campaigners who founded charities that help vulnerable women are on the list, as is a Transpennine railway worker who volunteers with the Samaritans and a teacher who set up a specialist music school.

And there are sporting stars honoured too, including Leeds Rhinos legend Jamie Jones-Buchanan, wheelchair rugby star Jamie Stead and martial arts champion Vanda Fairchild.

Here are some of their stories:-

Barbara Peters, from Greetland, Halifax - the dance teacher still taking classes at 83

Barbara Peters has been awarded the British Empire Medal for services to dancing.

She is a ballet teacher and retired examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance who has been teaching for 66+ years. During Covid-19 she gave free dance classes online via Zoom to a wide international audience.

Her virtual international class has not only kept people physically fit but has been vital and indispensable in maintaining their mental wellbeing and participants included NHS workers.

She attended the Royal Academy of Dance to train as a teacher in 1956 and opened her own school in 1962.

In 2019, at 80 years old, she performed on The Greatest Dancer and went on to appear on national TV. At 81 she completed her Grade 8 and is now teaching Silver Swans and the Discovering Repertoire levels.

She is also the co-founder of the international company Baby Ballet, which she set up with her daughter in order to inspire the next generation of ballet dancers - and which has grown to become one of the UK’s leading pre-school dance brands.

Richard Holliday, from Huddersfield - the railway worker and mental health campaigner

The 47-year-old has spent 17 years working for Transpennine Express as their learning and development manager.

He has been awarded the British Empire Medal for services to mental health.

He volunteers with his local Samaritans, where he is a trustee as well as doing regular weekly shifts, answering phone calls and providing life-saving support to those that need it.

Using his experience, he has been a strong advocate in raising awareness about fatalities on the railway and the impact that this can have upon those within the industry.

He has developed and continues to deliver suicide prevention training to colleagues across the business and provides trauma support where required.

Alongside his Samaritans work, from 2013-2019 he volunteered with Kirklees Council as an Appropriate Adult for 10-17-year-olds in police custody.

He has a great affinity with young people and helps to inspire and support them, something that he also does through his support of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme.

Transpennine regularly takes on apprentices, who have to complete their DofE as part of this training.

He has been a real key player in supporting colleagues and their wellbeing since the start of the Covid-19 restrictions in March 2020. He works alongside the communications team to provide wellbeing support and advice and set up daily Zoom 'elevenses' for all colleagues to dial into, with a particular focus on those who lived alone or who were isolating.

Belinda Rickerby, from Kirklees - the town hall tea lady who formed a partnership with alcohol abuse charity

The 59-year-old has worked for Kirklees Council's town hall hospitality service for 25 years and has now been awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the community after forming a new partnership during the pandemic.

She has been assisting the work of ‘Choices for Health in Addiction Recovery and Treatment’ (CHART), a commissioned local service that supports people with substance misuse problems. CHART identified that numerous people would be at risk of acute alcohol withdrawal, seizures and hospital admissions due to lockdown closures that would prevent access to alcohol.

Using the stock from the council hospitality provisions, she donated supplies to food banks and organised for the alcohol from town hall bars to be supplied to CHART, for free or at a low cost.

She personally delivered supplies to CHART within 24 hours to ensure needs were met. She liaised with CHART’s lead nurse and took on the responsibility of dispensing alcohol into measured doses for each person, which took high pressures away from the charity’s nurses.

Her rapid response allowed CHART to deliver to vulnerable service users immediately, one of whom was close to a potential seizure.

Her pivotal contribution prevented numerous beneficiaries becoming acutely unwell and being admitted to the overloaded hospitals and avoided distress and associated risks of Covid-19 transmission.

Ian McPherson, from Harrogate - the Army music tutor who inspires students struggling in mainstream education

There is a British Empire Medal for services to education for the 59-year-old, who runs Percussive Edge.

He has dedicated his life to help people of all ages achieve their musical ambitions and has helped many of his students who struggling with their education.

His students have used these skills to benefit the community by playing at events to raise funds for charity.

He has a career as a bandmaster in the Army Military Music arena and became one of the youngest service personnel to be awarded the coveted Bandmaster qualification at the age of 27.

He volunteered to perform at music events for the charities Royal Star and Garter and the Royal British Legion, bringing enjoyment to the lives of veterans who were suffering from dementia or other related conditions.

In 1999, he set up his own percussion group, teaching hundreds of students about drumming techniques.

He has been particularly successful at teaching special needs students who had been denied access to learning music in their everyday curriculum, and adapts his training materials for them.

He spends countless hours outside of official lessons supporting young aspiring musicians by preparing bespoke lesson plans for free whilst helping other teachers access his training materials available at no cost. These resources are widely respected by the international Percussive Arts Society.

He has written and arranged specific pieces for a student who subsequently raised over £70,000 for local charities and who would not have done so without Ian’s guidance and teaching.

Many students have gone on to achieve international acclaim and recognition including two former pupils named as Young Drummer of the Year finalists.

Angela Blower, from Redcar - the school cook turned catering manager who has improved the diets of Teesside children

The 59-year-old has just retired as catering manager for Middlesbrough Council with a British Empire Medal for services to education.

She has ensured countless young people have received healthy, nutritious meals over the last 43 years.

She joined the local authority straight from school as a trainee cook in September 1978, spending her evenings studying for her City & Guilds and catering qualifications.

She has been catering manager for 24 years; in that time the team have served more than 11,000 meals each school day.

This in turn led to her and her team winning twice Gold awards within the region for initiatives in promoting healthy foods and choices, acting as a role model to other businesses locally.

Andrew Denton, from Wetherby - the hotel manager who turned Best Westerns into Covid field hospitals

The 47-year-old has been made MBE for his charitable services to the NHS while he was head of hotels for Best Western.

In March 2020, he persuaded the company, which owns 300 hotels, to offer Covid-19 support to the NHS by turning them into field hospitals.

He offered 16,000 rooms to the NHS and kept 80 hotels open to help NHS staff, key workers and the vulnerable. Turning hotels into field hospitals enabled the NHS to help take less urgent patients away from critical care beds and emergency wards.

His initiative led to hotels becoming hospitals for the first time since the war.

His innovation in this area led to the creation of a new not-for-profit organisation ‘ProcessC-19’ bringing together clinical care and logistics experts and hospitality providers to be in a position to help support hospitals by taking pressure off critical bed space.

He was the first to start conversations with local authorities and police forces to provide hotels as places of refuge for vulnerable people, such as domestic abuse victims, homeless and rough sleepers in Best Western hotels.

He has been praised by police and local authorities for his support.

He also created a national letter writing campaign in March 2020 to support people struggling in lockdown with isolation, loneliness and mental health. That campaign has resulted in the writing of over 2,000 letters to people from the age of five to 103 to keep spirits up.

His efforts, initiative and innovation turned a hotel business into a vital support function for the NHS, police and local authorities.

His efforts led the way for how hotels can help in the crisis and his letter writing idea continues to act as a much-loved support to people suffering with poor mental health during the crisis and restrictions on seeing people, helping many thousands of people over a number of crucial months to get through the first wave safely.