THE great and the good of Scottish life have been recognised for their achievements in the Queen's Birthday Honours with Stagecoach founder and philanthropist Brian Souter topping the list with a knighthood for his services to transport and charity.
Chief Medical Officer Harry Burns, Scotland’s top doctor, has also received a knighthood, with Elish Angiolini, QC – until recently Lord Advocate – awarded a damehood (DBE) in the annual accolades for services to the administration of justice.
The three high-profile figures join a host of Scots who have been recognised for their contribution to society, whether it be through excellence in their profession or by their previously unsung grass roots work in the community.
A swimming coach for the disabled from Greenock, the head keeper at Balmoral estate and a sheep specialist working on St Kilda are included in the recipients.
The multi-millionaire, who who started his working life as a bus conductor, said he was “delighted” to be knighted.
The 57-year-old transport mogul started on the road to success after founding the Stagecoach company with his sister Ann Gloag in the early 1980s.
They started out with two second-hand buses, financed by their father’s redundancy pay-off, with the firm now employing 30,000 people and has an annual turnover of around £2 billion.
According to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, the siblings are together worth £650 million and Mr Souter has long donated part of his wealth to the Souter Charitable Trust, which is run by his wife Betty and includes education and anti-malaria programmes for children in Africa.
He said: “Having started my career in public transport as a young bus conductor, I am delighted to receive this prestigious honour.
“However, the achievements and innovations would not have been possible without the dynamic Stagecoach team who support me, and I accept this award on their behalf.”
Mr Souter has been no stranger to controversy during his career. In the early years of devolution, he led an unsuccessful campaign against plans to scrap Section 28, legislation which banned councils from allowing “the promotion” of homosexuality in schools. He has also twice donated £500,000 to SNP election campaigns.
Mr Souter added: “It was particularly gratifying for me to see the work of the Souter Charitable Trust being acknowledged, which is a fitting tribute to my wife Betty and her team who never seek publicity but do amazing work.”
Meanwhile, Chief Medical Officer Harry Burns said it was an “overwhelming” honour to learn he was to receive a knighthood from the Queen.
Mr Burns, a former surgeon who joined the Scottish Government as its top medical authority in 2005, said: “I was over-whelmed when I received the news and my family are absolutely delighted.
“It is a huge honour to be Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. I never thought I would receive any other kind of honour.
“Any recognition you achieve is a result of partnership working. It is a real privilege to work with great colleagues in the civil service and health service in Scotland and this award is a tribute to them.”
Also honoured was Elish Angiolini, who stepped down from her role as Lord Advocate in May after five years in the post.
Her time in office was defined by her commitment to improving conviction rates for rape and domestic abuse, plus the successful prosecution of Marek Harcar, the man who raped and murdered Glasgow businesswoman Moira Jones. After stepping down from the Crown Office, she announced she was to serve as the patron of The Moira Fund, which supports families of the victims of murder and other serious crimes.
She served both Labour and SNP governments and is now taking a break from her profession. She is a mother of two children.
Last night she said: “This is an enormous honour and one which I could never have received without the love and support of my family, my friends and the wonderful people I have worked with over the past 28 years.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article