Two Haslemere residents have been recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours 2025.

Kenneth Evan Griffiths. Member of the Order of the British Empire. Volunteer. For services to the community in Haslemere, Surrey.

Crispin Parry. Member of the Order of the British Empire. Chief Executive, British Underground. For services to the Arts, Music and the Creative Industries. Here is more about Crispin on his LinkedIn page.

As Ken’s honour is specifically for volunteering and services to the community in Haslemere, we feel it is apt to acknowledge some of his local achievements.

Ken is sometimes known as Community Ken as he is involved in so many community groups in Haslemere. He was a key organiser in Haslemere’s recent VE Day celebrations and worked with local youth groups to create the poppy display at St. Christopher’s Church. Ken organises Little Lumpy a popular charity sportive that raises funds and Haslemere Festival every year. He is also on the organising committee for Haslemere Festival. During Covid, when Little Lumpy was cancelled due to lockdown restrictions, Ken rode the Sport route of Little Lumpy to thank registrants for forfeiting their entry fees so that the team could buy a new bike for Alice Holt Inclusive Cycling. If you walk along Wey Hill, you’ll have noticed the beautiful flower displays up the hill leading to the traffic lights. These are planted up and maintained by Wey Hill in Bloom which is a volunteer initiative led by Ken. He is also Chair of The Haslemere Community Rail Partnership. One of their recent projects was the adoption of the Haslemere signal box. Ken has been involved with Haslewey, Rotary, Haslemere Museum, Gourmet Geezers and Haslemere Fringe in different capacities. He led the fundraising efforts to bring a new Post Office counter to Haslewey. In 2019, he was awarded a BBC Surrey Make A Difference Award for all his volunteering work in Haslemere.

Readers of This is Haslemere may be interested to hear this BBC Surrey interview in 2020 when Ken received a surprise telephone call from Mark Carter.

CONGRATULATIONS to both Ken and Crispin from This is Haslemere.