New year honours: Thai cave rescue divers, Dame Twiggy and Sir Philip Pullman recognised by Queen

British divers who helped save a young football team trapped inside a flooded cave in Thailand join the best-selling author Philip Pullman and sixties supermodel Lesley “Twiggy“ Lawson in being decorated alongside entertainment, sport and arts stars in the 2019 new year honours list.

Twiggy received a damehood for services to fashion, the arts and charity, while Pullman got a knighthood.

Downton Abbey’s Jim Carter got an OBE, while Monty Python star and travel documentary maker Michael Palin was awarded a knighthood.

The filmmaker Christopher Nolan, whose movies include Inception and Dunkirk, got a CBE for services to film.

Overall, 1,148 recipients are named in the 2019 new year list, including 43 people recognised for their acts responding to the terror attacks in Manchester and London in 2017.

Divers Joshua Bratchley, Lance Corporal Connor Roe and Vernon Unsworth, the ex-pat suing Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for labelling him a “pedo guy”, got MBEs for their roles in the Thai cave rescue, which gripped the world during the summer.

Four other British cave divers involved in the operation also received civilian gallantry awards for exceptional bravery protecting others.

Richard Stanton and John Volanthen, the first to reach the 12 stranded children and their team coach, were awarded the George Medal, while Christopher Jewell and Jason Mallinson received the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

They are among 12 recipients of bravery awards announced at the same time as the main honours list, including seven firefighters who saved elderly residents from a serious blaze at a care home in Cheshunt in 2017.

Among those recognised for their response to the London and Manchester terror attacks in 2017 are Paul Woodrow, operations director at the London Ambulance Service, and Joy Ongcachuy, a theatre nurse at St Barts Hospital, who got OBEs for services to NHS leadership and healthcare respectively.

Theresa Lam, family liaison lead for Greater Manchester Police, got a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to policing and the community.

No awards went to anyone involved in Grenfell Tower relief work until the public inquiry has concluded following talks with emergency services and community groups, organisers said.

Some 544 women are recognised in the list, representing 47 per cent of the total, the lowest percentage since 2013.

Bafta-winning actress Thandie Newton, who starred in Oscar-winning film Crash and more recently the futuristic drama Westworld, got an OBE for services to film and charity.

Actress Sophie Okonedo, who starred in Hotel Rwanda and more recently in Antony And Cleopatra at the National Theatre, has had her OBE upgraded to a CBE for services to drama.

Dr Helen Pankhurst, a senior adviser at Care international, and great-granddaughter of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, also got a CBE, for services to gender equality.

Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, author of the feminist dystopian work The Handmaid’s Tale, became a member of the Order of the Companions of honour for services to literature.

In sport, England football captain Harry Kane got an MBE while national team manager Gareth Southgate got an OBE, both for services to football and in recognition of England’s semi-final run at the 2018 World Cup.

Former England cricket captain Alastair Cook was knighted for services to cricket while Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas got an upgrade from MBE to OBE to add to his BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2018 accolade.

Ex-England rugby skipper Bill Beaumont, who is currently World Rugby chairman, was knighted for services to Rugby Union Football.

Motor neurone disease sufferer and former Scottish rugby player George “Doddie” Weir got an OBE for services to rugby, motor neurone disease research and the community in the Scottish Borders.

Former footballer Leroy Rosenior, now vice-president of Show Racism the Red Card, got an MBE for services to tackling discrimination in sport.

In politics, veteran Brexiteer John Redwood and his Tory colleague Gary Streeter, who voted Remain, were both knighted for political and public service along with Labour’s Deputy Chief Whip Alan Campbell.

Elsewhere, consultant plastic surgeon professor Simon Peter Jabir Kay, of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, got an OBE for services to complex reconstructive hand surgery, including hand transplantation. In 2016, Prof Kay performed the first double hand transplant in the UK on Chris King, who was seriously maimed in a workplace accident.

John Clough, whose daughter Jane was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, got an MBE for his campaigning for victims of domestic abuse.

He was joined by Andrea Aviet, who runs a charity helping abused women and young people, and who got a BEM.

Overall 12 per cent of those being honoured come from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background, 4 per cent consider themselves disabled and 5 per cent identify as LGBT.

Additional reporting by Press Association