A ROSYTH teacher has said he's "honoured" to have received an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to his adopted Scotland.

Former Royal Navy serviceman David Dykes, 68, who became a teacher of Design and Technology at Perth Academy, was recognised for both his services to the school and the community of Perth as well as Scotland.

David worked tirelessly on a project with the school after he retired for half a decade that researched the names of a school war memorial and commemorated those who fell in the First World War. It brought relatives together from as far as Canada as well as the local community and allowed pupils to make meaningful connections with those who had lost their lives.

The native of Scarborough told the Press: "I was surprised first of all when I heard but it's a great honour and I'm quite chuffed.

"And to be recognised for services to Scotland really means a lot to me, in a country that has become my adopted home.

"It all came about because I felt it was about time that we found out about the stories behind these names on the school memorial and we were approaching the centenary of the Great War.

"We started the ‘Flowers of the Forest’ group and compiled a book on our research and also managed to contact the families of the people who were on the memorial.

"It led to a library exhibition and we also organised trips to the Commonwealth Memorial in France for pupils.

"So it started from very humble beginnings but ended up with a lot of people involved in the commemorations."

David felt compelled to make sure pupils got a chance to go to France after a trip there in 2010.

A coach driver said he would make a stop at the Menin Gate Memorial where there is a tribute to the 54,000 missing at Ypres.

"A lad asked me if he could look for his great-great uncle and we managed to find the name," David explained.

"We took a photo with him and it was very moving, I realised that it meant a lot to people and I think that was where my desire came from to find out what happened to these people.

"The project went on for a long time with a group of students from S1 all the way through to their final days in S6.

"And actually it's still ongoing because now a group of students are researching the names of the people from the school who lost their lives in Word War Two."

David came to Rosyth after meeting a "local girl" when working as a navy apprentice. He left the navy when he was 30 and then went to work in the dockyards.

It was in his 40s that he decided to take a leap of faith and retrain as a teacher and stayed with Perth Academy from 1998 until his retirement in 2014.

He added: "It was a bit risky but it was something I'd always wanted to do.

"My wife and four kids really had to make sacrifices while I went to uni for four years and money was tight.

"So I really have to thank them because if I didn't do that, then I wouldn't have gone to Perth Academy or be standing here with an MBE!

"My parents are in their 90s now but, as you can imagine, they are thrilled but it is tinged with sadness as my dad has dementia, which we know can be very cruel, so it's hard to communicate with him.

"But this project has been great for me to keep in touch with all my pals and we've met so many people on the journey.

"I really have to give credit to the group of students and their history teacher who committed themselves to the research when they still had all their normal studying and work to do."