Damehood for Radio 4’s Jenni Murray

BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray becomes a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list revealed today.

Radio 2 stalwart Bob Harris is given an OBE, as are Radio 4 comedy duo Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor who have been regulars on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue for nearly 40 years.

Emma Freud – who worked at Radio 1 in the 90s and was part of the original-line up on GLR – also gets an OBE in the Birthday Honours.

Jenni Murray, who has hosted Woman’s Hour for more than 20 years and was given the Gold Award at this year’s Sony Radio Academy Awards, was given the OBE in 1999. It’s understood she received the letter from the Palace offering her the Damehood in the same week last month when she celebrated her birthday and picked up the special award at the Sonys.

65-year-old Bob Harris, known to listeners as ‘Whispering Bob’ has been with Radio 2 since 1997, after starting at the BBC with Radio 1 1970-78. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in October last year.

Bob is given the OBE for services to music. “I’ve always loved what I do so it’s an added bonus to be recognised for something you love. I love music and I’m really just at the heart of what I love,” he said.

Recipients of the OBE Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, along with Bill Oddie, were the original team behind The Goodies in the early 70s before going onto join the line-up for I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – where they’ve remained ever since.

Graeme said: “It’s quite ironic considering how rude we were about the honours all those years ago.” Tim added: “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. Graeme used to say it would be better to be an Earl and an OBE – then you could be an ‘earlobe’.”

The awards are for their contribution to ‘light entertainment’. Fellow Goodie Bill Oddie was given the same award in 2003 although his was for services to wildlife conservation.