A humanitarian from Union Mills was surrounded by family and friends when presented with his British Empire Medal (BEM).

Tony Fox received the recognition at Government House in Onchan for dedicating more than 40 years of his life to raising thousands of pounds for a number of good causes.

Mr Fox found out he had been added to the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2019 in April. The award for Services to Medical Charities and the Community of the Isle of Man was presented to him on Friday by Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney.

Mr Fox said it was a ’really poignant’ moment.

’Getting a BEM is something I never thought I would get in my lifetime - you don’t set off aiming for something like this. We’ve worked really hard to raise money and it’s not easy. We want to help other patients and people as much as possible,’ he said.

He was praised for his ’enthusiastic approach’ to fundraising towards coronary care at Noble’s Hospital, Broadgreen in Liverpool and Robert Owen House in Liverpool.

Most recently he has helped raise £100,000 towards liver treatment equipment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

This stemmed from his wife, Ann, who suffered liver failure and died in 2014.

Mr Fox said that along with his daughter Andrea and son Stephen they have continued the work already started by his wife to help others live on.

The funds raised towards the Birmingham hospital bought a Normothermic Regional Perfusion machine to keep the liver, pancreas and kidneys supplied with donors’ oxygenated blood. This increases the chance of success for transplants.

The hospital named it the ’Fox Machine’ in memory of Mrs Fox and the work her family has done.

A transplant surgeon from the hospital attended the BEM investiture along with other medical staff from Noble’s Hospital and members of the Fox family from the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland.

Mr Fox said he accepted the BEM on his wife’s behalf.