Queen's Birthday Honours: Gong replaces bong for Sir Trevor McDonald

Arts & Media

TREVOR MCDONALD said he was "stunned" to receive a knighthood in the honours list. Sir Trevor presented News at Ten solo for seven years and now anchors the ITV news at 6.30.

Describing his reaction, he said: "It is stunned disbelief. I never dreamt of it. When they gave me an OBE in 1992 I went around for days telling everybody about it. I was absolutely chuffed then. The knighthood citation says it is for journalism as well as broadcasting and that gives me great pleasure."

Sir Trevor started his career by reading the nightly news in his native Trinidad, before moving to the BBC World Service in London in 1969 and joining ITN in 1973. He said he will not be using his new title while presenting: "It was plain Trevor McDonald who got the contract and it's him who will continue working here."

The other senior journalist to pick up an award is Lord Deedes, the 86- year-old former editor of The Daily Telegraph, who still writes for the paper and recently covered the war in Kosovo. Lord Deedes, who was the model for William Boot, the hero of Evelyn Waugh's newspaper satire Scoop, and was the "Bill" in Private Eye's "Dear Bill" column, becomes a Knight Commander of the British Empire.

For services to literature, A S Byatt, the author of Possession, becomes a Dame. Among those appointed CBE are the historian Lady Antonia Fraser, the playwright Christopher Hampton, the travel writer Jan Morris, and Professor John Bayley, whose wife, Dame Iris Murdoch, died of Alzheimer's disease in February. The creator of the Flashman series, George MacDonald Fraser, and the children's writer Joan Aiken are each appointed OBE.

The actors Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow are made CBE, and the comedienne Julie Walters is appointed OBE, as is John Barry, the composer of the theme music for the James Bond films.

Two Radio 4 regulars are made OBE: Jenni Murray, the presenter of Woman's Hour, and Libby Purves, who presents Midweek. Gillian Reynolds, the doyenne of radio critics, is appointed MBE. Joan Bakewell, who has hosted programmes on British television since she became the star of Late Night Line Up in the Sixties, is created CBE.