A ROAD safety campaigner who lost her teenage son in a car crash has been awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours after working tirelessly to warn youngsters of the dangers of driving.

Janet Warin works with North Yorkshire’s 95 Alive road safety partnership alongside the police and other groups such as THINK to hammer home the messages of staying safe while driving on rural roads. Her son Daniel, was seventeen when he was killed when his car ran off the road, near Pickering, in 1995. The crash happened three weeks after he passed his driving test.

The Northern Echo: David and Janet Warin pictured at home in Pickering

Janet, from Pickering, with her husband David has regularly appeared in schools across North Yorkshire delivering hard hitting messages about the need to stay safe and the effects crashes have on families and loved ones. The couple made a DVD for road safety campaigners talking about their experience.

Janet said they did not want to put young people off learning to drive but to make sure that when they did they stayed safe and realised the dangers, particularly on rural roads where dry stone walls and trees make minor mistakes potentially lethal mistakes.

The honour is the second for the couple, husband David was presented with an MBE last year.

A dedicated dog lover who has helped countless people working with her pets as therapy has been awarded a BEM in the New Year’s Honours.

Ruth Boyes , from Leyburn whose Airedale Terrier, Charlie, was named Dog of the Year at Crufts for the Pets As Therapy (PATS) charity, works with youngsters and adults with severe learning difficulties and with elderly people. Mrs Boyes became interested in the charity when she realised how one of her dogs had particularly helped her seriously ill grandson who died when he was two, after suffering from cerebral palsy.

She has worked with people at Whorlton Hall, near Barnard Castle, which helps people with learning disabilities and complex needs, at two prisons, Wealstun and Wetherby, and at a local care home in Leyburn. Mrs Boyes also works as an assessor for Pets As therapy, delivering talks to local groups, including medical students at the University of Leeds where she informed them of the benefits of having pets as part of therapy.

ONE of the region’s best known fishermen has netted an MBE for his services to sea angling.

Broadcaster and journalist Sam Harris first picked up a rod as a boy and has been hooked ever since.

The Northern Echo:

Now aged 82, he has been honoured by The Queen for his lifelong dedication to the sport, which has seen him hold a variety of senior club positions, organize countless competitions and raise a substantial amount of money for charity along the way.

Sam held his first angling competition in 1958, along the coast between Tynemouth and Whitley Bay, and the following year founded The Novocastrian Angling Club.

During the 1960s he organized a dinghy fishing competition, which saw more than 430 anglers take to the water of the North Sea, thought to be a record to this day.

He went on to chair the North East division of the National Federation of Sea Anglers and more recently served with The Angling Trust, while writing regular columns for Sea Angling Magazine and the Evening Chronicle newspaper in Newcastle and became a well-known voice on BBC local radio over the last 40 years.

Sam served five years with the RAF and also worked as a tour guide at the Nissan plant, but even then angling was close to his heart, organising fishing trips for workers at the car factory.

“I just love fishing,” he said. “Fishing has been very good to me”.

Over the years Sam has fished all over the world, from the Arctic Circle to Africa and the USA, but says the waters of Southern Ireland remain his favourite fishing grounds and counts a 75lb sailfish off Kenya and a 141lb blue shark in Donegal Bay among his greatest catches.

But the patience he has learned in practicing the sport has been tested over the last six weeks as he kept the secret of his honour from The Queen.

Speaking from his home in Old Shotton, near Peterlee, Sam said: “It has been purgatory – it has been horrendous trying to keep it quiet”

A ROTARIAN who has dedicated his life to charity work has been awarded the MBE for services to the community.

The Northern Echo:

Albert Whiting, from Monkseaton, was first honoured back in 1994 for his when he received the highest award to an individual from Rotary International in India for his long-term work supporting the poor and disadvantaged in the sub-continent.

He was also a founding trustee of Sunderland Sports Fund, a charitable trust fund which raises money to provide financial aid for talented young sports people and disabled sports people of all ages, serving as its treasurer for 17 years.

Earlier this year, the former district councillors also received a long-service award from St. Oswald’s Hospice in Gosforth for his 22 years of volunteering and fundraising.

Mr Whiting said: “It was a complete surprise to me.

“I have only told my wife so far, so when the news is made public I will also tell my immediate family but I will not make a big fuss about it – I’m just very humbled by the whole experience.”

A MAN who has completed the Great North Run 32 times is getting a British Empire Medal in the New Year honours.

John Richardson, 67, from Durham, has raised over £25,000 for charities in the North-East that help sick youngsters over the years.

The Northern Echo:

At the age of 66 he ran the world famous half marathon despite being unwell with suspected fractured ribs following a training accident as he did not want to let down his chosen charity and had raised £800 in sponsorship.

Mr Richardson said: “I am delighted and proud to receive this honour in recognition of my contribution to a variety of charitable organisations.”

Mr Richardson started work in the Civil Service in 1963 in the Durham office of what is now National Savings and Investments.

He took early retirement in 2001 but went to work in the Passport Office a year later and is still there.

Mr Richardson supports the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, Children with Leukemia and Grace House Children’s Hospice.

He said: “Who would have thought that something that started all those years ago as a consequence of me trying to keep fit as well as raising a few bob for charity would result in me receiving this honour?”