Inverness-born Army Reserve officer awarded OBE for public and charitable service in Scotland in Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Birthday Honours List
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Former Inverness Courier reporter Mike Edwards has been awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Birthday Honours List.
The 57 year-old author, Army Reserve officer and former journalist receives the award for public and charitable service in Scotland.
"I am deeply humbled and totally shocked and surprised to receive this award," said Mr Edwards who now lives in Rhu, near Helensburgh.
"It is an honour for the charities it is my privilege to serve, as much as it is for me.
"It used to be my business to write stories about people who were in difficulty, it is much better to try to help them instead."
A former Inverness High School pupil, he started his career at the Courier and also worked for Moray Firth Radio and the Press and Journal.
He was a journalist for 40 years and was the nightly face of the STV news for more than a quarter of a century.
Mr Edwards is also a Major in the Army Reserve and in nearly 30 years’ service has been mobilised for tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When he retired from STV, he became a full-time carer for his mother, Margaret, a former nurse and tutor at Raigmore Hospital, who was living with dementia. After she died in 2019, he devoted himself to charity work.
He is a trustee of the Erskine veterans charity, the Royal Highland Fusiliers trust, the Highlanders Regimental Museum at Fort George, the Loch Lomond Rescue Boat and the Glasgow Humane Society.
He is also on the board of the Cameron Highlanders Youth Club in Inverness and is a caseworker for the armed forces charity SSAFA.
In 2020 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire.
Mr Edwards revealed he nearly did not receive the OBE.
He was on holiday in Switzerland and was unaware that he had been honoured.
"One afternoon I was walking around Bern when I noticed a voicemail on my phone but I didn’t recognise the number or the voice," he said.
"The caller asked me to check my emails urgently and reply within the hour. I thought it was one of my pals winding me up or an elaborate phishing scam.
"Then I saw a text message saying I had run out of data so I couldn’t look at my emails.
"I tried to top it up, unsuccessfully. I couldn’t get on wifi anywhere, so I went in to a Swiss mobile phone shop just as it was closing and explained my predicament.
"The salesman hurriedly told me what was wrong but I didn’t understand a word of it.
"In the end, with the shutters coming down, he sold me a Swiss data sim card and when I put it into my phone, about 100 emails dropped into my inbox.
"At the bottom was one from the Cabinet Office sent the week before, telling me I’d been awarded the OBE.
"I phoned the number in the email and spoke to the official who had left the voicemail message and he told me that had I called an hour later, I’d have been off the list. I couldn’t believe it.
"The rest of my holiday was spent in a trance and I’m not sure I needed the plane I flew home in, I could have floated back myself."
Mr Edwards was also recently named Army reservist of the year at the Scottish Veterans Awards.
His novel, Friendly Fire, was published in 2006 and a volume of autobiography, The Road Home, a coast-to-coast road journey across USA via five towns named Inverness, in 2018.
He plans to continue his writing career with a series of novels.
"Whatever I have done in my life, I can thank my home town for it," he said. "I am an Inverness boy, always will be.
"I am so proud of Inverness and deeply grateful for all it has given me."
Lindsay Graham (62), from Inverness, deputy chairwoman of the Poverty and Inequality Commission Scotland, was also awarded the OBE for services to tackling children’s food insecurity.
“It’s very humbling and it means a lot in the Jubilee year,” she said.
William John Dingwall was awarded the BEM for voluntary service to veterans in his role as a standard bearer and vice-president of the Inverness branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland.
And author Ian Rankin, creator of the Inspector Rebus series of crime novels, received a knighthood.
Although largely based in Edinburgh the now Sir Ian also has a home in Cromarty on the Black Isle.
He is a regular visitor and often retires there when working on his literary creations.
Top military award for former Courier reporter
