Queen's Birthday Honours: Former Oswestry schoolgirl is made Companion of Honour
A former Oswestry schoolgirl who went on to become a multi-millionaire business tycoon and philanthropist has become a Companion of Honour in the Queen's birthday honours.
Dame Stephanie Shirley - or Steve as she likes to be called - is one of only 65 Companions of Honour.
The 83-year-old says she owes her success in life to her time spent in Shropshire.
She arrived in Britain as an unaccompanied child refugee from German in the Kindertransport at the onset of the Second World War.
A pupil at Oswestry Girls High School she went on to become one of Britain's finest businesswomen, setting up her own computer programming company and being named one of Britain's top scientists.
Dame Shirley was at one time said to be worth £150 million but is no longer in the UK rich list having turned philanthropist and given away more than £50 million to good causes.
She returned to Oswestry in 2015 to speak at the Oswestry Lit Fest.
She said: "When people ask me if I love my adopted country I say yes, and that is based largely on the idyllic memories of Oswestry.
"I was able to grow up in safety – a quiet countryside where even outsiders like me could be confident that people in authority would do the right thing by me. My love for the town is clear in that we had a family cat called Oswald."
