I was lucky enough to be awarded a BEM in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 2020 for services to commercial fishing and the marine environment in Lyme Bay. I can only thank the Fellowship for giving me the opportunity to visit the Maritime Provinces of North America where I found fishermen using a superior lobster measure to the UK, allowing lobsters a longer life and the females to breed once or twice before catch. After much effort and help from the chief scientific officer of the day, the government was persuaded to follow suit.

Similarly, in 2008, after a visit to Downing Street and more pressure on government, the Fisheries Minister (Jonathan Shaw) used a statutory instrument to ban trawls and dredges from a 60 square mile area of Lyme Bay thereby preserving the ground and creating the Lyme Bay Fisheries and Conservation Reserve.