Marcus Rashford amongst North West people recognised in Queen's Birthday Honours

Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford has been made an MBE for his efforts in helping secure free meals for vulnerable children during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rashford, 22, launched a high-profile campaign which resulted in the Government changing policy over its free school meals vouchers during lockdown, helping ensure children in need did not go hungry during the summer break.

The England forward has maintained his drive for social change by since forming a child food poverty task force, which has linked up with some of the UK's biggest supermarkets and food brands.

Last month, the Professional Footballers' Association honoured Rashford with a special merit award for his efforts.

"What we've done so far, it's only a short-term answer," the United forward said at the time.

"Me and my team behind me are just trying to find plans on how we can help these children for the rest of their childhood really; to find long-term answers to the problem.

"At the moment we don't have the answers but we'll do our best to try to find them, and to progress the situation that they are in at the moment the best we can."

A quizmaster from Darwen, who accidentally made his first lockdown quiz public on Facebook has been given an MBE for services to charity.

Jay Flynn has raised £750,000 for charity from various online quizzes which were often attended by hundreds of thousands of people when they were streamed on YouTube.

The 38-year-old, who lives in Darwen, Lancashire, with his wife, Sarah and son, Jack, aged three, said: "I nearly fell backwards off my chair. I thought, 'This can't be real.'

"I'm completely overwhelmed and honoured."

Mr Flynn had been running a pub with a business partner until March, where he ran the quiz nights until the shutdown and decided to switch to the virtual event on Facebook.

One edition of his quiz, hosted by Stephen Fry in May, raised £140,000 for Alzheimer's Research UK - the event holds the Guinness World Record for most viewers of a quiz YouTube live stream with more than 182,000 people playing.

Mr Flynn, whose first book, Jay's Virtual Pub Quiz Book, came out on Thursday, holds his quizzes online each Thursday and Saturday.

Professor Cheryl Lenney, Chief Nurse at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded an OBE in today’s Queens’ Birthday Honours list for her contribution to nursing and midwifery.

Cheryl has also been recognised for her work in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and has worked in the NHS for 38 years.

Marie Zsigmond, a midwife based at St Mary's Hospital has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Midwifery and Midwifery Safeguarding.

Marie ensures that expectant mothers and their babies are protected and supported during and after their pregnancy in her role as named midwife for safeguarding at the hospital.

TalkTalk engineers Peter Harding and Andrew Miller have both been made an MBE for services to critical national infrastructure during the Covid-19 response, having been responsible for helping connect broadband for a number of healthcare settings.

They got key infrastructure connected to broadband despite unprecedented logistical challenges, including the Nightingale Hospitals in ExCel London, Harrogate and Exeter, 80 care homes, 80 GP surgeries, 200 schools and 250 food distribution and logistics providers, among others.

They managed to get the new sites connected in less than 72 hours when normally these connections would take several weeks to install.

Mr Harding and Mr Miller stepped up to the challenge of managing more than 1,200 Covid-19 network connections identified as critical by the Government, during the time the UK was under national lockdown and more people were reliant on the internet to work and keep connected to others.

Mr Harding, from Whitefield, Greater Manchester, said: "It's very surreal to be receiving this award but it obviously makes you extremely happy and proud.

"None of what we achieved would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of numerous others who supported us to complete jobs, which would normally take four to six weeks, within 48 hours."

Mr Miller, from Warrington in Cheshire, added: "It feels very weird but amazing at the same time when it's really just for doing your job well."

Phil Redmond, who has created Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks has been given a knighthood for services to broadcasting and the arts.

Born in Liverpool in 1949 as the son of a cleaner and a bus driver, he was educated at St Kevin's RC School in Northwood, Kirkby, and later said he based his first ideas for Grange Hill on his time there.

Brian Cox, Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester has been awarded a CBE for services to the promotion of science in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Professor Cox was born in Oldham and has created several documentaries on science and space for the BBC.

Meanwhile, Blackburn-based billionaire brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa have been awarded CBEs as they were hailed for services to business and charity for their work leading petrol forecourt operator EG Group.

Last week the brothers agreed a £6.8billion deal to take over the supermarket Asda.

This year's list was postponed from June in order to include people, such as medical workers, fundraisers and volunteers, who have been instrumental in the fight against coronavirus.

The Cabinet Office said more than 4,000 nominations were received since May, which far exceeds what the honours committee gets in a year.