A DEPUTY Lieutenant of County Durham, Professor John Clarke, was awarded an OBE for his services to the community in the New Year Honours.

Since premature retirement from Durham University in 1990 the geography academic, an emeritus professor, was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant, and served for six years as chairman of the Durham and its successor North Durham health authorities.

He has since overseeen the award of grants to worthy regional causes in his role chairing the North-East committees of the Community Foundation and Awards for All, both positions which he has recently relinquished.

Prof Clarke remains chairman of the County Durham Foundation grants committee.

An authority on populations and demography, he came to Durham University after RAF service, as a geography lecturer in 1955. On retirement the former vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society was pro-vice chancellor and sub-warden of the university. Married, with three daughters, he has lived in the same house in Durham for more than 40 years.

Helen Hesler, from Horden in east Durham, has earned her MBE for services to people with disabilities in the county. She was a founder of Easington District Association for the Disabled in 1970 and now chairs the group.

A widow who sold her home to help found the first North-East hospice was awarded the OBE.

Mary Butterwick, 79, has dedicated her life to setting up the Stockton-based hospice, which now bears her name. She founded the Butterwick Hospice in 1984, inspired by a desire to ease the suffering of others after she watched her husband, John, die a painful death from cancer.

Today her dream has turned into a charity which cares for more than 600 people a year, including children, at sites in Stockton and Bishop Auckland.

Another County Durham winner of the MBE is David Anthony Waters, the distribution director of Northern Electric and Gas plc, whose award is for services to the electricity industry.