An Andover man has been recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours list for his charitable services to veterans during the coronavirus pandemic. 

William 'Billy' Macleod, 59, has been awarded an MBE along with hundreds of frontline and community heroes who played a key role in the coronavirus pandemic response.  

Billy is the founder and chief operations officer of Veterans in Action (VIA), who, during the pandemic, delivered food parcels to those in need, with the use of vehicles normally used for expeditions around the world. 

Originally the vehicles to be used to help improve veterans' mental health but now they are at the heart of Andover's response to the coronavirus crisis and are being used to help deliver essential goods to those who are most vulnerable. 

Mr Macleod has a distinguished affiliation with the armed forces having joined the Royal Engineers Junior Leaders Regiment as the youngest recruit at the age of 16 and five days in June 1977.  

He trained as a combat engineer, amphibious engineer and a bricklayer, serving many tours around the world as well as on operations. 

During his service Billy sustained an injury which gradually worsened hampering his career resulting in numerous operations on his legs and arms.   

Undaunted Billy, as CEO of Veterans In Action, has led long distance walks across Britain totalling a distance of 13,500 miles with over 500 veterans taking part who have had a diagnosis of PTSD.  

He also oversaw a project to build expedition vehicles with veterans doing all the work, these vehicles were used to undertake three overland expeditions across Europe. 

Billy has developed VIA’s ALIVE Programme; a unique three step process that is the basis of what VIA use to help veterans to discover a sense of achievement and aiding them to rebuild their confidence, self-esteem and self-belief. 

The list was due to be published in June but was postponed by Boris Johnson to enable nominations of those who went above and beyond in the early months of the response to Covid-19.