BARBARA Sharples from Looe has been awarded an MBE in the King’s New Year’s Honours list for services to charity in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

She joined the Cornwall Air Ambulance as a trustee in 2009 after a move to Cornwall. She hosted their first Heli Appeal in 2018 and set up a philanthropy forum which raises around £400,000 a year to keep the helicopters flying. She is now Vice President of the charity.

Barbara first started charity work in earnest more than 30 year ago when she became a trustee for Children on the Edge, a charity working in Romania after the revolution. A trustee for ten years, she visited the children at the orphanages in her holidays. She has supported a local charity wherever she has lived in the UK.

She said: “The greatest honour in all that time has been supporting the charities that we felt so passionately about, and especially Cornwall Air Ambulance because our crews are saving lives every day.

“The lovely thing about the honours list is that it does recognise so many volunteers. Charities without volunteers just couldn’t function. It’s wonderful to be recognised but at the end of the day nobody does anything on their own. It’s a team of people pulling together to make good things happen.”

Barbara has no idea who nominated her, saying it feels surreal. “It hasn’t really sunk in,” she said. “I guess my first thought is, I wish my parents were here to see this. I’m just a very ordinary person who’s been nominated for this award. It just feels very incredible.”

She added: “Since we’ve lived in Cornwall, the thing that hit me, is how generous people are with their money, considering it’s such a poor county, but also with their time. Such generous natured communities. It’s lovely that that’s being recognised.”