Honour for Doccombe man (From Salisbury Journal)

Honour for Doccombe man

1:25pm Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News By Hannah White

THE director of a Downton-based logistics company has been made an MBE for voluntary services to the Royal British Legion.

John Underhill, who runs Doccombe European, began helping the charity ten years ago by using his trucks as support vehicles at a number of fundraising events, including the Pedal to Paris bike ride.

After staging The Angel & The Fallen, a successful concert at Salisbury Cathedral in 2010 which raised £10,000 for the Royal British Legion, he was asked to help organise the charity’s 90th anniversary celebrations in 2011.

Mr Underhill, of Damerham, near Fordingbridge, said: “I was asked if it would be possible to organise a concert at every cathedral in the country to mark the celebrations. By the end of the project we had managed to achieve 40 throughout England and Wales, including cathedrals on the Isle of Man, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

“This honour has come as a complete surprise; I am humbled by it, though delighted.

“Although I was the project manager for the concerts, it was the people on the ground who helped organise them and in one sense I accept this award for them.”