BRITISH Empire Medal recipient Ruby Ditcher recently returned to an event she founded and celebrated the BEM honour with friends.

Ruby, from Gunnislake, was awarded the BEM for services to the community in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for 2017, and collected her medal recently at Mount Edgecombe from the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall.

To mark the honour, Ruby visited the Tavistock Parish Church Bazaar at Tavistock Town Hall on November 18, an event she founded 47 years ago.

On receiving the BEM for services to Tavistock and Callington, Ruby said she was completely overwhelmed: ‘You read about these things happening to other people but you never think it would happen to you. It is such an honour.’