FIRST PERSON: Malgwyn Davies OBE, chairman of St David's Hospice Care

"I was awarded the OBE in the New Year's honour's list and received it from the Prince of Wales earlier this month. I was allowed to take three guests so the obvious choice was my wife Margaret and my two daughters Bethan and Sian. We all loved it – it was a great feeling to be there.

I have been chairman of the St David’s Hospice Care for nearly six years. The charity do absolutely tremendous work. I received the award but it’s the organisation that has done so well.

I think that's reflected in me getting the award because it's such a good story in what they do.

I've been involved in public service for 47 years and retired about 10 years ago. I wanted to do some voluntary work as I was still active and wanted to do something different to what I had done before.

I decided to drive for the charity to take patients to a day centre one day a week I did that for about 15 months. I started the driving and then St David's must have had discussions as a board and somebody suggested my name to join the board of trustees - that's what I did around 2006.

I spent three or four years as a board member before I was asked to be the chairman. For years when I worked at Gwent County Council I was aware of what the charity did as most chairman or the mayor always picked St David's as their charity for the year or part of the year.

But the more I got involved in it I realised that the work they are doing is just absolutely fantastic. They care for not only patients who are dying from cancer and other things as well but we support the family during that period including the children, especially if they are young children. We support them medically and help guide them through the systems we know about for financial help. It's a fantastic to be part of such an organisation which is really helping people.

I was born in April 1946 in Llangynwyd, a village near Maesteg. My mother still lives there. I went to Llangynwyd Primary School and then passed the 11 plus to go to Maesteg Grammar School.

I left school at nearly 17 and went to work as a clerk in a solicitor's office in Bridgend. That was where I was attracted to the legal profession.

I ended up going to a law college in Guildford and then applied for a legal executive job with Monmouthshire council in 1969.

I met my wife Margaret in 1964 in Maesteg- when she was 17-years-old and I was 18-years-old. She is from Bryn a village not far from Maesteg. We met at a dance in Maesteg. We got married in September 1968 in in a church in Llangynwyd.

I have two daughters Bethan, the eldest who is now 44-years-old and Sian who is 41. They're childhood was spent in Caerleon where we lived from 1969 to 1993 before moving to Cwmbran.

Margaret worked in the job centre in Newport before managing the job centre in Caldicot. I have six grandchildren in total; four boys and two girls. I love being a grandparent. My mother was very pleased when I got my award but I couldn't believe how much the grandchildren got excited.

Bethan, is a deputy head at an infant school in the Forest of Dean - she has two children; one is nearly 16-years-old and another one who is eight-years-old. Sian, is on maternity at the moment as she's just had a three-month-old baby, she works for Cardiff University in the recruitment for international students. She has a four-year-old a six-year-old and an eight-year-old.

My mother's name is Thelma Davies she is 92. She worked as a canteen assistant in my primary school. My father was Elias John Davies, he died of cancer in 2002 - he was 82-years-old. He was very active in St John's - he worked underground as a coal miner originally. He was an ambulance man in St John's dealing with any injuries underground. He left the colliery when I was 10-years-old as he was nearly killed underground.

He was under a fall that’s what they call it when the roof collapses he was lucky in a sense as he was right at the end of the collapse and was completely covered by the collapse. It knocked his helmet off and some people saw the helmet light and realised there was someone close by and managed to get him out before he died.

He did it for 20 years at Bryn colliery and finished when I was about 10-years-old. My father was a coal miner and his father was - in some ways I’m one of the first generation that didn't go underground. After the colliery he went to work in the paper mill factory until he retired.

I was an only child for 10 years and then was joined by my mother's half brother David who came to live with us when his mother and father died.

My two younger sisters came along late in the process; Lynwen, 55, now works in a school helping children who have special needs and Jayne, 52, who is a nurse.

I was chief executive for Caerphilly County Borough Council for 11 years. I was appointed in June 95 and I was the only employee of the council. On the 31st of March 96 there were three of us working for the council but on the 1st of April there were 9,000 - so what I had to do in that 10 months was set up the system - taking part of Gwent, the whole of Islwyn, whole of the Rymney valley and part of Mid Glamorgan. What we had to do was fuse them together to create a new organisation - that was challenging. That was my biggest challenge of my life I suppose.

I started with Monmouthshire County Council in 1969 and moved to Gwent County Council shortly after I was finished my training to be solicitor.

I was the clerk to the Lord Lieutenant of Gwent for 20 years. The chief executive of the council was always asked to do it so for 10 years it was part of my role as the council and when I retired 10 years ago I was asked if I wanted to do it from home that was voluntary. As part of the work I organised royal visits to the county.

I remember once we had five visits in one day so that was quite busy. I arranged the Queen's visit twice, the Prince of Wales' every year really, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew and Edward. My main role was to make sure everything was set up properly anyone who the Royal family were going to be presented to were in their right place.

I remember one visit the Queen came to north of Ystrad Mynach to a factory that made Christmas crackers. They had the commission to make the Queen's table for Christmas day and she wanted to visit them. A young female cadet was nervous about closing the doors, she was allowed to close the queen's door it was so heavy she couldn't quite get it shut.

They presented the Queen with the Christmas crackers and gave one to the lord lieutenant and myself – a similar one to the Queens which I still have.

I remember when she came to Ebbw Vale as part of the jubilee celebrations. You can tell there’s a different atmosphere to it when the Queen attends - the people involved in hosting the event, the excitement involved is unbelievable. It’s nice to be part of that. When the Queen came to Ebbw Vale I was presented to her at the end.

I was also clerk to the Gwent Police Authority for 13 years and I was the chairman of the Caerphilly St John's council – one of the reasons why I joined St John's council was because my father was in St John's ambulance. I was responsible for the ambulance halls, helping to finds funds and be involved in the centre in Caerphilly."