Pat Pinnington from King's Lynn awarded British Empire Medal

Pat Pinnington, 77, from King's Lynn, was honoured for her services to Girlguiding in Norfolk.

"I was shocked - a bit taken aback," she said of her reaction to being told she would be awarded a BEM. "You just don't know what people think of your involvement."

She first became involved in the movement when she became a girl guide at the age of 12 in 1959.

Pat Pinnington after she became a girl guide in 1959 (Image: Pat Pinnington)

She would go on to become a county commissioner for Girlguiding Norfolk - of which she is about to become president -after a career spanning six decades in the movement.

"We see the girls develop and grow with the activities we give them," she said. "A lot of it's fun but it's also about how to cope in emergencies, there could be a bit of first aid, what do you do if you're lost, it's all those sorts of things."

Retired civil servant Mrs Pinnington also set up the 9th King's Lynn Guides in 1970 and is still a leader in the group more than 50 years later.

Pat Pinnington with an award celebrating 40 years of guiding in 2004 (Image: Sonya Duncan)

Some of the girls who belonged to the group's daughters over the years would go on to follow their mums and earn their badges for first aid or adventures.

In 2018, she cut the first turf for a new guides' archive research centre in Coltishall, near Norwich.

She told how the first guides earned badges for milking a cow, mending a show or keeping bees after the movement began in 2010 - while trousers were frowned on and camping was not considered "ladylike".