A DEDICATED librarian, a wrestling legend and a healthcare assistant from Bolton have all been included in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Julie Oldham, Albert Aspen and Andrea Greenall are among those on a bumper list that features hundreds of medical professionals, volunteers and fundraisers honoured for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Julie Oldham, Bolton Council’s former head of libraries and museums, has been recognised in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her tireless work as a champion of libraries for more than 40 years.

She has been awarded an OBE for ‘services to public libraries’, adding to the MBE she received in 2002 for her services to librarianship.

Julie said: “I am honoured and humbled to have been nominated by colleagues to receive this award for services to public libraries.”

Born and educated in Bolton, Julie began her career in public libraries in 1979, working in Nottinghamshire and Wigan, before coming back to Bolton and starting work in the council’s library service in 1988.

Also honoured is 86-year-old Albert Aspen, who receives an MBE.

The Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club stalwart competed at featherweight at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won bronze medals at the 1958, 1962 and 1966 Commonwealth Games.

His son, Brian, also became an Olympian and won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1974.

Honoured with an OBE for services to the NHS during Covid-19 is Royal Bolton Hospital healthcare assistant Andrea Greenall, who throughout lockdown visited patients in their homes across the North West, giving them a Covid-19 swab to ensure they were fit for surgery.

Andrea said: “The most we have done with one team in one day was ten patients with the two of us on a Saturday between 9am and 2pm, which we found really hard, but we got through.”