Sunderland woman Maureen Morris visits Buckingham Palace for OBE presentation

"I thought it was a scam at first."

A Sunderland charity worker has described the moment she discovered she had been nominated for an OBE.

Maureen Morris was named in th4e New Year's Honours list and visited Buckingham Palace earlier this month to collect her award from Princess Anne, the Princess Royal.

Maureen, 69, joined Sunderland Parents Carers Forum as a founder member in 2007 and over the years has served as Chair, Regional Steering Group member for the North East and Cumbria and Co-chair of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums.

She was nominated for services to Parent Carers of Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

The day at the place had been a surreal experience, she said: "It was very precise in the way they carried it out - if you want a thing really well organised , such as a wedding, you should get the Buckingham Palace staff involved with it. It was absolutely seamless.

"There were 100 of us who were being honoured at the same time and we each had a chance to bring three guests, so up to 400 people. They talked to us all the time, they kept us calm and they told us everything that was going to happen

"It was really excellent."

Maureen took husband Ken, brother Kerr and son Alex to the ceremony: "They had a really good position to see what was going on," she said.

Maureen first became involved with the forum while being a carer to daughter Caitlin, now 29, who is living with autism spectrum disorder and Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia, which affects her mobility, and has a learning disability. It was while struggling to find the right education for Caitlin tht she first heard about the work that was happening elsewhere in the country.

Caitlin, however, did not wish to attend the ceremony: "There were too many people, she did not know what was going to happen," said Maureen.

"There was no way I was going to force her to go but she has been loving seeing the photographs."

Maureen was attending a conference at Blackburn Rovers' Ewood Park when she received the email informing her she had been nominated: "I had done my presentation and I was waiting to take part in a Q and A," she recalled.

"I was scrolling through my phone and I saw this email. I thought it was a scam at first,

"I rushed into a corner and put my hand over the phone so I could call my husband."