You Might Like
New Year’s Honours List: The Best Reasons Why People Rejected An Honour
Whilst the majority of people are delighted to be mentioned in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List, scores of others have turned down an award and some have even thought twice and returned them years after making a trip to the palace.
Some of the most high profile names to do so include Roald Dahl, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Steven Hawking.
And from the ethical to the downright bizarre, there are many reasons why people reject gongs – here are ten of the best:
1. David Bowie
He said: “I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for.
“It’s not what I spent my life working for.”
Addressing fellow musician, Mick Jagger, accepting the honour, Bowie said: “It’s not my place to make a judgment on Jagger, it’s his decision. But it’s just not for me.”
2. George Harrison
he said.
“George would have felt insulted – and with very good reason.”
Every member of the Beatles was awarded an MBE in 1965, but John Lennon returned his as a peace protest.
3. JG Ballard
Explaining in 2003 why he rejected a CBE, which he was put forward for to recognise his services to literature, Ballard said he could not accept an honour awarded by the monarch.
“There’s all that bowing and scraping and mummery at the palace.
“It’s the whole climate of deference to the monarch and everything else it represents.
“They just seem to perpetuate the image of Britain as too much pomp and not enough circumstance. It’s a huge pantomime where tinsel takes the place of substance.
“A lot of these medals are orders of the British Empire, which is a bit ludicrous.
“The dreams of empire were only swept away relatively recently, in the 60s. Suddenly, we seem to have a prime minister who has delusions of a similar kind.
“It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away.
“It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society.”
JG Ballard died in 2009.
4. Carla Lane
returned her honour to then prime minister Tony Blair after a CBE was awarded to Brian Cass, the head of Huntingdon Life Sciences, which runs animal testing laboratories.
Blair told Lane she could have her OBE back any time she liked, but she never asked for it back.
Lane, who was a passionate animal rights activist and even set up an animal sanctuary from her home, passed away last year.
5. Howard Gayle
