WILTSHIRE musician, percussionist and charity fundraiser Nick Mason, 74, of Corsham, has been awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

The Pink Floyd drummer has been named in the New Year’s Honours List for his services to the music industry.

Many in Wiltshire will also note his continued support for two charities in the region. Namely, the Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust and the Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s Airbase Appeal.

The Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust (WBVT) provides help for older and vulnerable

people in the county while the air ambulance held a fundraising appeal to provide a base for the emergency service.

One of his fundraising methods has been through the Open Gardens scheme, allowing the public to visit his garden near Corsham.

Mr Mason has been the longest-serving member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd from its beginnings in the 1960s to its current constitution.

As a result, he featured on every album produced by the band since he co-founded ‘The Floyd’ in 1965.

Together with bandmates, including David Gilmour and Roger Waters, Mason helped forge a new and commercially popular experimentalism in rock music, appearing on The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC TV and examined at length in the pages of New Musical Express.

He began drumming in bands alongside fellow Regent Street Polytechnic student, Waters in the early 1960s, before they teamed up with keyboard player Richard Wright and frontman Syd Barret.

From their debut album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Pink Floyd gathered a strong following, becoming one of the 1970s super groups and achieving critical success.

Mason was influenced by jazz music, which helped him provide the distinctive percussive elements to the band’s concept albums. He also had a hand in lyrics and co-wrote several songs, including Echoes.

He still tours with his newly-formed band, Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, and has indulged his passion for motor racing and Ferraris between touring commitments throughout his career.

Now a Wiltshire resident, he is married to his second wife Nettie with whom he has two sons and lives in Middlewick House (the former home of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall) near Corsham that he bought in 1995.

Outside of music Mr Mason is a sports car enthusiast.