After helping thwart bomb threats, conduct high storey fire rescues and quash potential anthrax attacks over a 20-year career, a Mitcham woman has achieved her dream by meeting the Queen at Windsor Castle after being made an MBE.

Lynette Catchpole, 47, was awarded for services to the United Kingdom Border Agency.

She said: “It was the pinnacle of my life and it was always my dream to meet her.”

No stranger to danger, Ms Catchpole showed bravery beyond her duties on several occasions during a career that saw her work on secondments with the special forces and rapid response police units.

She established herself as an important figure in the front-line fight against immigration at Portsmouth harbour.

In the mid-1990s, she helped fire services rescue a trapped disabled woman from the 17th floor of Lunar House, in Croydon, but, when the emergency lift broke down, she had to break out herself before she could get to the woman.

As well as fire rescues, Ms Catchpole also helped a bomb squad in the late 1990s after a live bomb was found in the Home Office post room, and saw off a potential anthrax attack on the Home Office in 2009.

Ms Catchpole regularly worked 70-hour weeks to fulfil her charity work with the RNLI and Jeans for Genes, as well as voluntary work for Benedon healthcare and with Tooting and Mitcham Football Club, where she has been chief steward for more than 30 years.

She recently held a retirement party in the name of Macmillan Cancer Support and donated the money raised to the charity.

She said: “If everyone was to do a little bit for others in the jubilee year, then it will all count towards a better future.”

She added the Queen told her she was a “shining example of the charity work to help others that she would to like to see people doing in the Jubilee year”.

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