Tim & Graeme get their OBEs at last!
11/06/2011 04:59 GMT

Posted by lisa

Congratulations to Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden for getting OBEs for their contributions to light entertainment in the Queen's Birthday Honours List! (Bill Oddie received an OBE in 2003 for services to wildlife conservation.)

There are a number of articles reporting the news, but for the moment I'm going to cut & paste one from the Belfast Telegraph which includes quotes from the two honorees (the article is online at http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/goodies-pair-thrilled-with-obes-16010736.html):


Goodies pair 'thrilled' with OBEs

Saturday, 11 June 2011


Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden have made it a clean sweep of OBEs for The Goodies

Goodies stars Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor said they were thrilled to be given OBEs in the Queen's Birthday Honours List - after spending years poking fun at the honours system.

The pair would regularly joke about the Government's readiness to hand out OBEs in the 1960s as they starred in BBC radio series I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again. The gags continued in their hit 1970s TV show The Goodies

Graeme, 68, said: "It's quite ironic considering how rude we were about the honours all those years ago."

The awards - for their contribution to "light entertainment" - means that the entire Goodies trio has been given the honour. Colleague Bill Oddie - an eminent ornithologist - was given his OBE in 2003 for services to wildlife conservation.

Tim, 70, said of the award: "I'm very, very pleased and not to say a little surprised - but very pleasantly so. At first I thought it was my son trying to con me.

"We used to send up the honours, the OBE in particular. It was back in the 60s and Harold Wilson was giving them away like sweets to anyone he ever met.

"But I think the minute Bill got one, I changed my mind about them!"

Broadcasters honoured in the list include BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray, 61, who is made a dame, and BBC Radio 2 DJ "Whispering" Bob Harris, 65, who gets an OBE. Jenni, who admits to being "not very good" at keeping secrets, said it had been difficult to keep the news to herself.

In the acting world, an OBE is awarded to Doctor Who actor Bernard Cribbins, 82, who also narrated children's show The Wombles. Bernard said: "It's a great surprise. I'm completely gobsmacked really."