How much difference can one person make? Quite a lot, the Queen’s Awards decided six years ago, when it launched awards for up to 11 individuals a year who have had a significant impact in promoting business and entrepreneurship skills and attitudes in the UK.

Among them is a “lifetime award”, won this year by Professor Allan Gibb, who founded the Small Business Centre at Durham University Business School in 1971, becoming its first director. The move came after he produced a report on the decline of the region’s traditional huge industries brought him into contact with several owner- managers of small businesses.