Autumn 2022Queen's birthday honours for incredible four

Humera Haqqani, Catherine Connolly and Pamela Scarry have been named Members of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for their outstanding achievements and services, whilst Brian Morton has been granted The British Empire Medal.

Pamela Scarry MBE

Pamela Scarry is the Head of Development, Continuous Improvement Service at HM Revenue and Customs. She received her MBE for public service.

Pam, of Newhey, led a team of around 80 people who were responsible for creating the Government’s covid schemes including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS).

Pam and members of her team also volunteered to help deliver the NHS vaccination programme, and she vaccinated people and stewarded at venues around Greater Manchester.

She said: “I’m proud, privileged and honoured to receive the MBE. You do things in a community and in work because it’s what you do. For someone to nominate you is beyond words; you think ‘wow!’”

Catherine Connolly MBE

Catherine ‘Kate’ Connolly is the headteacher at Brownhill Learning Community which provides educational provision for pupils who are out of mainstream schools for a variety of reasons (including exclusion, emotional and behavioural difficulties, medical reasons, pregnancy and young mothers).

She received her MBE for services to the education of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people.

Mrs Connolly said: “I feel very honoured and proud to be a recipient of the MBE.

“I have had an amazing 38 years working in education, firstly in Manchester and for the last 21 years in Rochdale.

“The children and families at Brownhill are incredible to work with and inspire me every day to do the best I can. It has been a real pleasure to lead such a dedicated and hardworking staff team especially through the challenges of the last two years. They are the ones who deserve to be honoured."

Humera Haqqani MBE

Humera Haqqani is the managing director of Let’s Talk, a Rochdale charity offering a ‘wrap-around’ mental health service. She received her MBE for services to business and the community.

Humera moved to Rochdale in 1999 from the Netherlands: she now runs an annual event to help new migrants integrate. She hosts a community radio show in Urdu, which encouraged hundreds of listeners to get vaccinated against Covid, and helped organise virtual Islamic burial prayers during lockdown.

Since 2015, qualified driving instructor Humera has offered free driving lessons to victims of domestic abuse who cannot afford to pay.

Humera said: “I was very surprised and shocked. I’m just doing my duty as a human and I hope to be able to give more of my time like this.”

She also runs weekly free courses, a soup kitchen, drop-in sessions for the over 55s, a drop-in women’s club, a girls’ youth club and general drop-in sessions for domestic violence victims or potential forced marriage victims.

She also arranges a drop-in medical health check event, and has organised donation collections for international asylum camps.

Brian Morton BEM

Brian Morton received The British Empire Medal (BEM), for services to the community in Milnrow and Newhey during Covid-19. During lockdown, Brian worked up to 14 hours daily as a local delivery driver.

Known for his community spirit and support, Brian gave his contact details to all elderly and vulnerable residents so they could contact him for support if they were struggling.

Within days, he was running all sorts of errands for the vulnerable.

To lift morale, he gave out little wooden pocket ‘hugs’ to those who were lonely, to give them hope and remind them they are not alone.

He said: “I feel very proud and honoured to have received this, but I don’t feel like what I did was any bigger than what everyone else was doing.”

All this work was carried out by him voluntarily, motivated by his care for those who are worse off.