Mike Park MBE, team leader of Cockermouth MRT

The leader of a Lake District mountain rescue team who was honoured by the Queen said he feels the award belongs to the whole team.

Mike Park, team leader with Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team, was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List today.

The 46-year-old, who lives in a village near Cockermouth, has been team leader for the last four years, and a member of the team for 28 years. He works as a land surveyor at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.

Mr Park said: “I assume the team put me forward for it, but it’s a team of 40 people and I really feel it’s for every one of them.”

A keen outdoors enthusiast, he was introduced to the hills by his parents who took him walking from an early age. He moved on to rock climbing, ice climbing and fellrunning.

He was heavily involved in rescuing residents and visitors during the devastating floods that hit Cockermouth in 2009 and also in the fatal Keswick school bus crash in May last year. The team, in common with most of the Lake District rescue teams, was called in to deal with the aftermath a year ago of the gun rampage by Derrick Bird in which 12 people died and 11 were injured.

Mike Park

Mr Park said some of the events of the last three or four years have brought things closer to home, rather than just rescuing people on the fells he had never met.

He himself was a participant in the Original Mountain Marathon that was abandoned mid-way through the event when torrential rain and high winds hit the race, which was being held in Borrowdale in 2008.

“At 4 o’clock in the afternoon I found myself coming back down off the mountains to be told most of the rescue team was on the hills and the telephone was going wild,” he added.

“But I said at the time, my personal opinion was that I couldn’t fault the organisers.”

Although the Cockermouth MRT team leader said he is thrilled to receive the award, the real reward for mountain rescue comes more often.

“The thing I want to put over is: this is an honour to receive but it goes nowhere near the smiles you see on the faces of the people we rescue on the hills,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed every single moment with the Cockermouth team.”

• Beverley Penney, former director of Ramblers Cymru, was appointed an OBE for her services to the Ramblers in Wales, and Mary Taylor, who stepped down as chair of the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority in August last year, was made an MBE for services to the environment in mid-Wales.