A SOUTH Gloucestershire man has been honoured for more than two decades of voluntary work with three community organisations.
Rodney Stone, 85, was made an MBE for services to the community in June’s King’s Birthday honours list.
The retired BAe Systems chartered engineer has been an active member of the Pucklechurch Good Neighbours scheme since shortly after the organisation, which offers practical help to older and disabled people in the village, was founded 20 years ago.
He also helped set up Bristol’s branch of Tools for Self-Reliance, part of an international organisation that collects old usable hand tools and sewing machines and refurbishes them. The tools are then sent to help people in Africa earn a living as carpenters, builders, mechanics, tailors and blacksmiths.
The group is based at Kingswood Heritage Museum, where Rodney also volunteers. He has been a trustee for around 20 years and recently finished a six-year stint as chairman.
Originally from Brislington, Rodney started work at Filton in 1956 as an apprentice straight out of school, when the Bristol Britannia was being built.
He married in 1967 and he and wife Denise moved to Pucklechurch, where they still live. Throwing himself into volunteering after his retirement, Rodney joined Pucklechurch Good Neighbours when one of the founders left.
The group, which now has around 20 members, offers help with odd jobs, although Rodney has recently had to step back from being an active member due to the “frailty of old age”.
Rodney said: “We do everything from gardening to changing lightbulbs, putting out dustbins and providing companionship for older and disabled people.”
He set up the Tools for Self-Reliance group in a shed behind Kingswood Museum, in Tower Lane, Warmley, where he is also involved in a thriving Men in Sheds group.
At the museum, he has helped improve the set-up to help visitors learn about the many facets of Kingswood’s past.
Rodney said: “It’s got a lot of history, with Douglas motorcycles, miners, John Wesley and non-conformism, which started here, and outlaws like the Cock Road Gang.”
Rodney also ran a motorcycle training scheme at Patchway School for about 15 years.
The letter telling him he was being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire came “out of the blue”.
Rodney said: “I’m very, very pleased. One goes through life not really expecting anything and you do things because you want to do them but this is just a reward for all the years I’ve put in.”