Stars toast New Year's Honours

Some of the biggest names in sport, showbusiness and the arts have been recognised in the New Year's Honours list.

As predicted, all members of the Rugby World Cup-winning England squad have received awards, along with the usual array of high-profile rock stars and celebrities.

Among the entertainers honoured is Eric Clapton, 58, who becomes a CBE. Brought up in Surrey by his grandparents, he became one of Britain's legendary guitarists with the Yardbirds and Cream.

His most celebrated work, Layla, was inspired by his love for Patty Boyd, the wife of his best friend George Harrison.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host Chris Tarrant, 57, receives an OBE for services to broadcasting and charity.

England Coach Clive Woodward is knighted, while captain Martin Johnson receives a CBE.

Match-winning fly-half Jonny Wilkinson is awarded an OBE after receiving his MBE earlier this month. Veteran prop Jason Leonard also receives an OBE, and the rest of the squad have been awarded MBEs.

Other sporting honours include Tim Henman, who gets an OBE, after documents leaked to the Sunday Times suggested his name should be included to "add interest" to the list. "I was disappointed with the way the story came out, but I will go to receive the honour with a massive amount of pride," he said.

There is an OBE for Martin O'Neill, the hugely successful manager of Celtic Football Club who started his managerial career at Wycombe Wanderers. Michael Watson, the boxer who collapsed after a fight against Chris Eubank, receives an MBE for his fundraising for the Brain and Spine Foundation.

Tessa Sanderson, 1984 Olympic javelin champion, becomes a CBE, and Ireland and Ulster rugby union fly half David Humphreys receives an MBE. Pete Postlethwaite, once hailed by Steven Spielberg as "possibly the greatest actor in the world" after performances in The Usual Suspects and In The Name of the Father, gets an OBE. He said today he was "in complete shock".

Stephen Daldry, who directed the hit film Billy Elliot, gets a CBE, and Shakespearean actress and Calendar Girls star Penelope Wilton, receives an OBE.

The same award goes to entertainer Nicholas Parsons, and comic actor Roy Hudd. "I don't care whether it's the British Empire, the Croydon Empire, the Chelsea Palace or the Lewisham Hippodrome, I'm just delighted to be thought of," said Hudd.

There is a DBE for veteran actress Joan Plowright, widow of Sir Laurence Olivier. Classical tenor Ian Bostridge receives an OBE, as does Born Free star Virginia McKenna. Ray Davies, founder member of The Kinks, gets a CBE, as do children's author Philip Pullman, diet and fitness expert Rosemary Conley, and St Trinian's cartoonist Ronald Searle.

MBEs have been awarded to Daily Mail cartoonist Mac, alias Stanley McMurty, and Punch and Judy enthusiast John Styles. There is a knighthood for Tim Berners-Lee the computer scientist who developed HTML, without which the internet may have remained the exclusive domain of computer experts.

Berners-Lee, 48, now an academic in America, but originally from Sheen, said: "I feel like quite an ordinary person so the good news is it does happen to ordinary people who work on things that happen to work out," he said.

Political knighthoods go to Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman who this year recovered from cancer, Labour's Stuart Bell, who represents the Church of England in the Commons, and Tory MP John Butterfill, a pensions campaigner.