A CHARITY shop volunteer who has toured the world to help communities improve their yields of plants and crops has received an MBE from the Queen.

Barrie Wendt, of Coniston, had a special day at Buckingham Palace today, after being recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

He was recognised for voluntary services to Oxfam and has worked at the aid charity's shops in Ambleside and Ulverston for more than 26 years.

Mr Wendt has also helped Oxfam on a national and international scale by creating reliable spreadsheets to monitor sales and income across the charity's branches.

For this work, he was named as Oxfam's International Person of the Year in 2013.

During his career as a crop and pasture agronomist, Mr Wendt worked with various organisations to alleviate poverty and visited places such as Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

Coniston Parish Council was among the organisations to congratulate Mr Wendt at the time the Birthday Honours List was revealed in June.