WHEN people come to look back on Bill Taylor's career, he would rather he was not remembered for his knighthood.

"I'd much rather people remembered me as the man who helped bring Boy George to Blackburn," said the man made a Sir in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Sir Bill, 53, was chairman of the committee which decided to get a wider range of acts performing in King George's Hall in Blackburn.

And he added: "I suppose I also helped bring Jason Donovan to Blackburn as well, but you can't win them all!"

The Blackburn with Darwen Council leader still can't quite take it all in, despite knowing he was to be knighted for his services to local government for almost a month.

"I mean, is something supposed to change?" asked Bill as he completed a round of media interviews. "I hope not. I hope everything stays the same. I don't want people to think they suddenly can't approach me just because I have a Sir in front of my name.

"It is an honour and I think the fact I have got it is a testament to the fact that such a wide range of people do get honoured these days.

"I still want people to treat me the same, not to see anything different and call me whatever they did before, which I am sure in some cases, they would anyway!"

Bill, who is a youth and community worker for Lancashire County Council, first took to Blackburn with Darwen Council's political arena in 1980. Back then, nothing could have been further from his mind than extra letters before or after his name.

Bill said: "What I have always strived to do is make sure that people have as many opportunities to do as much as they can whenever they can.

"Maybe people will see what I have done as proof that given the right opportunities, anyone can go a long way. I come from a simple background on a council estate in Birmingham and went to a comprehensive school. But I was given chances, and always took them and I hope as a councillor I have helped create opportunities for people.

"That is why, when I was chairman of the recreation sub-committee, we tried to get a wider variety of acts to King George's Hall so it would attract a wider group of people.

"We also lifted rules on what you could wear when using things like our tennis courts. While we would like people to wear the right togs, just because don't shouldn't mean they are excluded."

Bill has also spent the last two decades acting as Jack Straw's election agent. The pair first met shortly after Bill moved to Pleckgate after marrying his wife, Anne, in 1978.

He said: "I went out canvassing with Jack one evening and at the end, he asked if I was hungry. I said I was going home to eat and he said he was starving. So I rang Anne and told him Jack was coming over for some of the stew she was making.

"We got home and she served up pie. I asked where the stew had gone and she said 'I can't serve stew to Jack, he's obviously going places.

"Apart from Anne, the rest of the family only found out yesterday. My mother, Isobel, who lives in Birmingham still, had to have a sit down. My son, Matt, who is 21 and at university did what all students do, and swore, while my youngest, Katherine, who is 17, was amazed.

"It hasn't been that hard to keep it under wraps because if I'm told not to repeat something, then I don't."

For Anne it means becoming Lady Taylor.

Bill said: "Anne is a teacher at Pleckgate High School and her class is called 'AT.' We've been joking they'll have to change it to 'LT' and I am sure she will take some stick, but it should all be good-hearted.

"I'll still be the same Bill who does housework, plays golf and so on. It's business as usual."