The Queen’s New Year Honours list is expected to be published on January 2, but there are a host of actors, sports stars and experts who are already rumoured to be in the running for recognition in 2022.
It is thought that tennis superstar Emma Raducanu will be appointed MBE following her incredible sporting success in 2021. Raducanu became the first qualifier ever to win the US Open in New York in September.
Following the teenager’s triumph, the Queen praised Raducanu in an open letter, hailing it a “remarkable achievement at such a young age”.
Raducanu, who lives in Bromley, has already achieved greatness in 2021 after she was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year earlier in December.
England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty is also among those rumoured to be recognised by the Queen with reports stating he is likely to receive a knighthood.
Fifty-five-year-old Professor Whitty was first noticed by the nation when he began delivering the Government’s Covid briefings.
It won’t be the first honour bestowed on Professor Whitty – he already holds the title of Companion of the Order of the Bath – in recognition of his service to tropical medicine in the UK and Africa during the Ebola crisis.
007 star Daniel Craig is also thought to be in line for a CMG – a highly prestigious award usually only given to senior diplomats and spies – following the release of his final outing as James Bond in the film No Time to Die.
Fellow actor Joanna Lumley is set to be made a Dame. Ms Lumley already holds an OBE and recalls the moment she was awarded her honour by The Queen saying: “You don’t remember much except for the beating heart when you walk up and step forward and step back and you’re trying to get all that right.”
She also described the lunch at Buckingham Palace, which took place after the ceremony by saying: “It’s pretty and friendly and not frightening, but it’s always scary to meet the Queen, funnily enough. The Queen is the Queen.
“And you can’t believe it, you get so taken aback by seeing someone who’s so frantically familiar.”
In a tradition dating back to at least 1890, the honours have been awarded to mark the start of the New Year – with the full list published in the London Gazette on January 2.