NEW YEAR'S HONOURS LIST - Dancer, clergyman and teacher are among those recognised
Published: 07 January 2011
by JOSH LOEB
THEY range from teachers to dancers to clergymen: this year’s New Year Honours list includes a diverse
range of people from Westminster who will be invited to Buckingham Palace in the spring to accept a gong for their life’s work.
Among those recognised was Keith Duggan, the former headmaster at Gateway Primary School in St John’s Wood, who has been awarded an OBE .
Mr Duggan, who lived in the area for around 40 years, retired last year and now lives with his wife in St Andrew’s, Scotland.
He started working at Gateway in 1990 after being made redundant when his former employer, the Inner London Education Authority, was closed down. He said: “I came to the school as a volunteer only meaning to stay for a week and they were short of teachers so I stayed. I never did that MA I had been meaning to do, something I am hoping to rectify now.” Instead of going into further education, Mr Duggan rose to become deputy headmaster at Gateway, before taking over as headmaster in 2004.
The school, based off Lisson Grove, has a diverse pupil intake – 40 per cent of the school’s pupils have Bengali as their mother tongue and 40 per cent speak Arabic as a first language – and has “always been a very good school”.
“It’s not one of those where it was a declining inner city primary that was turned around,” he said. “I think I made it a bit more successful during my time there but it’s always been a successful school.”
Sue Hoyle – formerly executive director of renowned Bloomsbury dance venue The Place – was also honoured with an OBE. Ms Hoyle is currently the director of the Strand-based Clore Leadership Programme, which offers training to “arts leaders of the future”.
Ms Hoyle said she was surprised and “a bit embarrassed” to have been awarded the accolade. She said: “It feels like a great honour and I think really the people who should get honoured are those I have worked with.”
Ms Hoyle was a university lecturer before she began working with dance organisations including the London Festival Ballet and Extemporary Dance Theatre.
She said the dance world “has changed enormously” since she began her career in the late 1970s, when there were few dance companies in the UK.
In addition, she has worked for international institutions including the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and she is co-author of a comparative study on funding for culture in France and Britain.
Other Westminster-based figures who made the list include Dr Dillian Gordon, a former curator at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, and Chu Ting Tang, non-executive director of the Chinatown-based London Chinese Association, who was awarded an OBE for services to Chinese people.
Colin Menzies, who has run Church House – the headquarters of the Archbishops Council and other ecclesiastical bodies – close to the Whitehall, for over 20 years, was honoured for services to the Church of England.