Winkle Brown misses out again
 

When oh when are the establishment going to honour Winkle Brown with the deserved Knighthood, surely well overdue and he is not getting any younger.

As I've said before on these pages, he may have been offered a K and turned it down.
Can any of us be sure that's not the case?

Did anyone nominate him this time round? It's my understanding that, apart from civil servants, the rest of us need someone to nominate us for an award.
I remember the 'old' Experimental Flying Control Assistants at Farnborough all got an Imperial Service Medal when they retired as a matter of course.

I guess the problem is that he's not a celebrity.

Today's Daily Telegraph carries readers' letters on the unfairness and arbitary nature of the British honours system, two of which characterise its failings as follows:

"Sir - Compare the MBE awarded to Master Navigator Tony Melton for years of brave and life-saving service in the Royal Air Force (obituaries, December 31) with the over-inflated awards to the many celebrities, sports people and time-servers featured in the New Year's honours list."

"Sir - A true East Ender: three husbands, five abortions, numerous affairs and now a Dame."

The western world, and particularly its youth, is obsessed with frothy celebrity - usually in some kind of show business. Occasionally, its imagination is briefly captured by the exploits of real heroes, including aerospace figures like "Sully", Chris Hadfield or Tim Peake.

Now if Tom Hanks, once he's finished with his film about Sully, should make one about Winkle Brown, with himself starring in the lead role...

Anyone, including Civil Servants, needs to be nominated. The basics are on the Gov website https://www.gov.uk/honours/overview . Surely there are people in the services and professional bodies for test pilots who could make a convincing case for Winkle Brown. Do they need prompting?

It may of course be that, as suggested by Alan Lupton, an honour has been offered and rejected.

Why doesn't someone who knows him ask ?

The ISM is more of a "long gong" for Civil Servants than an award.

Unlike the LSGCM, it is still for 25 years "undetected crime", but - IIRC - is only awarded on retirement. And it's only for D (maybe E?) grades and below I think, so - once again comparable to LSGC - not available for "officer equivalents".

Good Idea Gone Bad.
 

I don't think it's necessary to rehearse to the folks on here the endless list of worthless humanity that increasingly get awarded these gongs.
Gongs are in essence a great idea, - recognition for service and duty etc. Yes, of course, there will always be an element of arbitrariness to the process, but that's no reason to scrap it either. Whilst I am against the awarding of gongs based on the recipient being the 'last man standing', in the case of Brown, a good award is/was richly deserved, decades ago actually. When one contrasts Browns service - the risks - the long-term dedication et al - it makes the awarding of gongs to people merely on the basis of puerile celebrity seem positively obscene - and frankly, it is.
It Brown has indicated he'd not accept, that would be a great pity. Another such figure (and contemporary of Brown.) I knew well, would not have accepted either later in his life, but that was basically because it wasn't awarded when it was relevant. He felt that awarding it decades later, so that the establishment could cover their embarrassment - was 'Letting them off the hook'. Perhaps Brown feels the same.
What is 100% certain, is that Buckingham Palace need to oversee a complete overhaul, so that all Awards go to those who deserve them, not just overhyped 'celebrities'.

It's now possible for anybody who wishes to nominate people for honours. Might that have just made the tendency to give awards to celebs worse?

Given that EMwB was ADC to HMQ at one point, it seems unlikely that he'd refuse an honour from her.

G

He doesn't qualify - no tattoos!

Perhaps Flying Lawyer might be in a position to nominate...?

A worthy man like Mr Brown is better off not being part of a system that has always and I mean always given precedents to scoundrels and thieves .

Another classic example

Woman who founds a national support group fro arhtritus sufferers-nearlya million people gets an MBE

Woman who completely F--ks up the tax system and fails to extract even a penny from Google etc as well as the newly Americanised Cadbury becomes a Dame -although maybe that's why she was made a dame by not taxing those who can afford it most.

So respect to you Mr Brown , you are a true legend in your own field and recognised as such and we will never see your like again