MAKING sure the Home Grown Cereals Authority remains as competitive as ever is its chairman, Tony Pike, who lives at Caynham. He receives a CBE for his services to the arable crops industry.

His job is part-time and non-executive and, importantly, he has to remain independent.

"As an authority we are a link between the Government and the industry," said Mr Pike (pictured left).

The authority was always looking at new markets and new ideas. Growers could no longer dump their surplus grain by exporting it because overseas markets were often choosy.

However, the British Cereal Exports, an arm of the authority, had opened up new wheat markets and the initiative had won the authority the Exporter of the Year Award.

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PROFESSOR Eileen Baker, awarded an OBE, would like Shropshire to have a university of its own.

"There is no independent higher education of that sort in the county. A university would be a boost to morale and mean more people using the area," she said from her home near Craven Arms.

"The people of the county deserve their own university and it should be one which makes a priority of academic quality as well as of access."

Professor Baker has just retired as principal of Bishop Grosseteste College of higher education in Lincoln. She is still working on a number of educational projects. "Everyone said the main advantage of retirement would be saying no," she admitted, "but it also lies in being able to give more thinking time to the jobs you do take on."

Eileen is just as delighted with a second honour that she learned about shortly after hearing of her OBE. She will travel to Lincoln to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in the Cathedral in July.

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JOHN Andrew Pinder, 56, awarded the CBE, has a home in Cardington and one in London. He has been at the Cabinet Office since 2000 and was given the award for services to e-Government. He is chairman of Dovetail, Shrewsbury Ltd and was chairman of the Shropshire Learning and Skills Council from 2000 - 2001.