Stephen Fry to be knighted
- Stephen Fry is to be knighted
- The Blackadder and QI star has been recognised for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity
- He says he was "startled and enchanted" to receive the news
Stephen Fry has been recognised in the New Year Honours list with a knighthood.
The comedy actor and writer said he was "startled and enchanted" after receiving the letter informing him of his knighthood out of the blue.
He comments: "When you are recognised it does make you feel a bit 'crikey', but I think the most emotional thing is that when I think of my childhood, and my dreadful unhappiness and misery and stupidity, and everything that led to so many failures as a child.
"And for my parents, really, what a disaster. I mean every time the phone rang, they thought, 'Oh, God, what has Stephen done now'. It was a sort of joke in the family."
The Blackadder and QI star has been recognised for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity. He has been president of mental health charity Mind since 2011.
He notes: "It's all too easy to think that a mental illness is somehow something deeper and more to do with a failure inside. It's an incredibly important field and everybody from the King and his children have made it part of their work to talk about it, and other people in the public eye have been open about it."
Fry will now be known as Sir Stephen.