A CHARITY shop volunteer from Coniston has been honoured by The Queen for his volunteer work.

Barrie Wendt, 73, has been giving up his time for Oxfam for the past 26 years.

Mr Wendt originally started working in the Ambleside shop as a normal volunteer but then became involved with the financial side of the charity, helping to develop a system that could monitor sales across the branches.

"I am not an accountant nor did I had any retail experience before Oxfam but I spent my whole life working with numbers," said Mr Wendt.

"I was an agricultural scientist in tropical areas such as Uganda, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. I did soil experiments on different crops, finding out the best way to grow them and this meant there was an awful lot of data coming about each crop which had to be analysed. So I have always enjoyed working with numbers."

This work was recognised by Oxfam when he was named the charity's International Person of the Year in 2013.

Mr Wendt now spends around 30 hours a week volunteering for Oxfam, spending one day a week in the Ulverston store, some time in other stores to check on finances and health and safety, and also working at home.

"I am getting to the age now where I really should start slowing down but I love it so I am very happy to continue doing it," he said. "It was a natural charity for me because of all the time I spent overseas.

"Of course when I came home and Oxfam opened up their shop it was natural for me to be attracted to it because of time spent working in remote parts of the third world where the kind of problems that Oxfam are working to fix are very apparent."

He said that the trip to Buckingham Palace was 'amazing' and he was absolutely 'overwhelmed' to receive the MBE from The Queen herself.

"I did not know who was going to be presenting the award so I was vaguely saying it does not really matter but when I found out it was actually The Queen it was just fantastic," he said. "It never occurred to me that anything like this could happen."