The Lord Lieutenant for Devon handed out special awards to the community stalwarts of Bere Alston and Bere Ferrers on Friday evening at the annual parish meeting, marking his first ever visit to the peninsula.

Awards for distinguished service to the parish were given to Liz McQueen and Jeanette Englefield, with other awards being given to Helena Rogers, Linda Freeman, Caroline Clark and Frances Howard.

Liz and Jeanette chaired the village’s Bere Alston in Bloom committee last year, coordinating the villages entry and encouraging community effort, involving the local primary school and the scouts and brownies groups. In 2019, highest marks ever recorded for first time entrants were given to the village, with judges remarking that it was the highest amount of community involvement they had ever seen for a first time entrant — falling just two points short of a gold award, winning a silver gilt.

In 2022 gold was achieved for a large village category with a second gold for coming first out of all large villages in an area, covering Penzance to Swindon.

Helena Rogers’s award marked outstanding service to the community for many years as a retired former headteacher, editor of parish link and former member of the parish council. Linda Freeman was commended for her work in helping people during covid lockdowns, supporting those who were vulnerable and Caroline Clark for hers in supporting residents and rallying volunteers.

Dr Frances Howard was commended for her specialist environmental contribution to village entry by competing surveys of hedgehogs, moths and wildflowers.

The Lord Lieutenant David Fursdon said: ‘Tonight has been a wonderful example of what voluntary effort can do. There’s a lot of grim news around yet there are people keeping things going right around the county, this peninsuala is no exception and this really is driven by voluntary effort. I do some things which are quite tough, dealing with people who have been through very difficult times but I’m also able to say to people when they ask me about this role that I do come across people doing wonderful things for their communities and the opportunity to thank them on behalf of the King is one of the real privileges of the role of Lord Lieutenant.

‘I have seen and presented awards here to people that come into that category. I know the difference Britain in Bloom can make in lifting people’s spirits; making them feel so proud of where they live and actually enable people to overcome any feelings of upset they may have. Congratulations to every one of you who have made these wonderful things happen. I understand that the role of the parish and the council and I can’t encourage people enough to get involved because you all do a great job.’