Royal honour for Horsham hair salon owner

Kay, proprietor of Mayfair Hair in Horsham’s East Street, has been awarded a BEM for ‘services to the community of Horsham.’

Kay, who has raised tens of thousands of pounds for local charities over the past 25 years, said of her honour: “I still really can’t believe it. I don’t think it’s true yet. I’m actually overwhelmed.”

Kay has been an avid fundraiser for the Queen Elizabeth II School in Comptons Lane – for pupils with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties, or complex needs – where her husband Peter worked until his retirement.

Even now, Kay works at the school as a cleaner, as well as running her own business. “I’m going back after January. I do the cleaning every single day,” she said.

Among one of her largest fundraising feats was raising enough for the school to buy a specially equipped minibus.

Kay has also raised thousands of pounds for other charities including the Horsham branch of the Salvation Army. On one occasion alone, she raised around £3,000 to help the Salvation Army provide food at Christmas for homeless people.

Kay, 64, has been working in Horsham “since I was 13 and a half.” Her salon in East Street was opened in 2005 after she previously worked at premises in Caterways.

Now she’s looking forward to receiving her award at Buckingham Palace. “I’ll be getting a new hat and new outfit and I think I need to lose a bit of weight,” she joked.

She added: “This award is very honourable and ends this year on a high note after an unexpected loss of my only sister earlier in the year.

She said many people had helped in fundraising for the QEII School which began years ago with the help of drama teacher Sue Jay who used to stage shows while Kay organised raffles.

“I just want to say thank you to all the people that helped contribute by donating their unwanted gifts to help me make the raffle baskets – and I want to say thank you to my staff at the shop.”