Anne Diamond looks delighted as she receives an OBE from King Charles – after being told about the honour on the day of her breast cancer diagnosis
Veteran journalist Anne Diamond has been awarded an OBE for her services to public health and charity, including her campaigning efforts for cot death research.
The 69-year-old GB News presenter received the honor from King Charles at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday and proudly posed for a photo after the ceremony.
She looked sensational for the outing, teaming a vibrant jacket with cobalt blue trousers and a large fascinator.
Anne revealed in June that she received news of the honor on the same day she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said the award was ‘particularly special’ because it was for her 1991 cot death campaign, which she calls her ‘proudest achievement’.
Award: Veteran journalist Anne Diamond has been awarded an OBE for her services to public health and charity, including her campaigning efforts to investigate cot death
Honoured: The 69-year-old GB News presenter received the honor from King Charles at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday and posed proudly for photos
After her son Sebastian died of cot death (also known as cot death) in 1990, Anne launched the Back to Sleep awareness campaign together with The Lullaby Trust and the Department of Health.
The national media campaign, which began in 1991, warned parents that babies should sleep on their backs, not their stomachs, and credited a drop in deaths.
Anne began her career in regional news, working for both ITV and the BBC, becoming a star on daytime television in the 1980s and 1990s.
After being named in the New Year Honors in December, she said: ‘This OBE is literally an accolade for everyone who helped me and on whose groundbreaking research my campaign was based.
‘This also testifies to the fact that the media can be a positive force. According to the government’s own report, 80% of parents who received the life-saving advice received it through the TV adverts.
“But this is mainly for Sebastian, who we still miss, and for all those tragically lost lives.”
Dame Ann Limb and Tanya Steele were among the other notable names honored by King Charles at the investiture ceremony.
Anne revealed she was battling cancer in June and fought back tears as she discussed the diagnosis on GB News.
She recalled how doctors told her the news on the same day she was given an OBE and said it had been ‘an amazing journey’.
Anne had been off the air for almost six months and said she was still undergoing ‘heavy’ treatment for the disease, including radiotherapy.
Chic and fun, she looked sensational for the outing, teaming a vibrant jacket with cobalt trousers and a large fascinator
Discussing her diagnosis, she said: ‘It was a wonderful moment (being told about the OBE) and that was (at) 9.30 in the morning.
‘But I knew then, because I had already seen my GP, that I had to go to a breast cancer screening later that morning. I thought I’d just go for a mammogram and a few tests and I’d be out in an hour.
‘I spent the whole morning at my local hospital doing all kinds of things, biopsies, X-rays, CT scans, a few mammograms, all sorts of things, and by lunchtime I was still there.
‘And a lovely lady came with a lanyard around her neck that said MacMillan Cancer Care and that’s when I knew it was serious.’
The mother-of-five revealed she is still undergoing ‘tough’ treatment after taking months off work to focus on battling cancer.
She added: “I don’t have any advice for people because I’m still going through it. But I’m healthy enough to go back to work. I had the full work, the full mastectomy.
“God, this is the first time I’m talking about it, so it’s pretty hard, but I’ve had the full work done. The first operation I had lasted nine hours.
‘I can not remember. I was so in and out, but nine hours of removal and rebuilding, that took a lot of time and then I later had surgery where they removed the lymph nodes as well, just to make sure they could trace the journey, if the cancer has traveled to the rest of the body at all. Fortunately, I don’t think so.
‘I had a lot of radiotherapy, and I found that very difficult.
“So it’s been a journey, but I don’t pretend for a moment that I’m extraordinary because I’m fully aware that a quarter of the women in this country are going through what I just went through and I haven’t gone through that yet. to give any advice. All I have is empathy.”
Tragic: After her son Sebastian died of cot death in 1990, Mrs Diamond joined The Lullaby Trust and the Department of Health to campaign (pictured in 1991)