A MALPAS engineer has spoken about the wonderful experience she had after receiving Commander of the British Empire (CBE) from King Charles.

Dr Liane Smith CBE travelled to Windsor Castle on Tuesday, January 31 where she was presented with her award by the King.

She received her award as part of the 2022 honours list for her services to engineering and materials science.

Even in Windsor Castle, it was still a shock for Dr Smith that she was receiving a CBE.

She added: "It was just wonderful.

"When we arrived in Windsor Castle, we could see the Royal Standard was flying and I thought he's not going to be in and do the ceremony.

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"And then the message came, we were waiting in the garter throne room.

"We were told the King will have arrived when we heard the string quartet play the national anthem.

"He is such a lovely man, it was such a fantastic place. Everything about it was perfect."

Dr Smith has worked in engineering for four decades and founded her own company Larkton Ltd.

She explained: "I have an engineering consulting company.

"I have had a varied career of doing different things. I started an engineering consulting company in 1990 and built that up.

"I eventually sold it and worked for a big FTSE 100 company for a number of years.

"When I left I thought I really liked having my own business.

"There is just myself and my business partner in a small engineering consultancy which is very specialist."

Dr Smith was delighted for the recognition she received for her professional life and hopes it can inspire young people into engineering.

She said: "That is wonderful. We need encouragment for young people to realise they can go into a profession and actually get recognised for the contribution you've made.

"It is just wonderful to try and inspire the next generation to try and get into this fantastic career."

The Larkton founder and director added: "It is to encourage more young people to do science subjects and to feel postive about maths and technology.

"It will be a good thing if a higher proportion of young people felt they could hold onto those subjects beyond 16 and continue their studies and go on to to any level of further edcuation.

"There are a lot of opportunities in this area."