Barrow man receives MBE from Prince Charles

Mr Cushing (78), of Whiteacre Lane, Barrow, was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the community in Lancashire. The award recognised his wide range of charitable activities across East and West Lancashire and the Ribble Valley.

Locally, he is a past chairman of Clitheroe Round Table, and founder president of Clitheroe Lions Club, and was executive chairman for 16 years of Abbeyfield Ribble Valley Society, founder chairman of Carers’ Link (Hyndburn and Ribble Valley) and the Princess Royal Trust.

For more than 10 years he was involved with and supported The Women’s Refuge for East Lancashire. In the late 1990s he became a trustee of the “Glass House Appeal” for the Royal Preston Hospital Neurological Unit fund-raising programme.

For a number of years, Mr Cushing enjoyed working with Community and Business Partners (Lancashire) mentoring and helping flegling or sometimes struggling companies across the county.

One of his favourite fund-raising memories is the Ribble Valley Milk Roundsmen Collection, which raised nearly £20,000 in aid of the MRI Scanner appeal.

Mr Cushing said: “The MBE was never something I’d thought about and it was a bit of a shock when I first got to know about it. It’s a great honour, and I appreciate the societies, organisations and individuals who though me deserving of it.”