HOW many of us realised that Channel 4’s Mrs Moneypenny lived in a little village just outside Didcot?

Or that, a few hundred feet away from her, lives the woman who founded Small Business Saturday?

The Queen’s Birthday Honours list not only celebrates the best and brightest from across the country, but also serves as a reminder that these national heroes walk among us.

When forensic scientist Dr Angela Gallop CBE isn’t working on her next national murder mystery, she has to buy the groceries at Tesco like the rest of us. To most of us, the personnel who serve at RAF Benson are something of a mystery.

But the honours that so many of them received this month throw just a little light on the heroic work they do.

People like Janet Haylett, who was made a BEM for services to the community in Long and Little Wittenham, were singled out for one of the highest honours in the land by the monarch.

When Michelle Ovens founded Small Business Saturday three years ago nobody could have predicted that in 2014 it would attract 16.5 million people.

Let’s take the opportunity to consider that little extra thing we each could do to help others.