A BAFTA-winning TV and film director who has campaigned for women to be better represented in the industry has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours.

Beryl Richards, who lives in Falmouth, is a former lecturer in film and television production at Falmouth University. The MBE is the latest accolade in a glittering career which includes several Baftas and Royal Television Awards, and three Emmy nominations.

The MBE came as a surprise. “The letter, marked strictly confidential, came while I was away; my husband spent two days looking at it, but couldn’t bear it any longer and opened it,” Beryl laughed. “That was about a month ago, and we’ve had to keep really quiet about it since.”

Beryl attributes the award primarily to her campaigning work with professional body Directors UK to improve prospects for women. In 2016, as chair of the association, she won ITV Studio’s Achievement of The Year award for an awareness campaign including a speech at Cannes Film Festival.

“I felt women were being blocked,” she said. “Crews tended to be male, and felt we weren’t like them, wouldn’t fit in, were a bit of a risk. There were old-fashioned views about whether a woman could do the job - I had to manoeuvre my way around these blocks and find work where I could. I even started my own production company in my 20s to get around it. The trouble is, ducking and diving means your CV is then seen as ‘eclectic’.

“What I was really concerned about was that I couldn’t see the next generation coming through. It was harder for them than it had been for my cohort. What was great about teaching at Falmouth was that students saw I had done lots of things and was a pretty normal human being, which I think they appreciated.”

Beryl is also a passionate advocate for inclusion in her children’s TV work, focusing on stories from marginalised communities and often casting children of colour, working-class and neurodivergent children. Parents whose children have watched CBBC might be familiar with Beryl’s work, ranging from comedies - including The Secret Life of Boys and My Life as a Popat, about a British-Indian family - to gripping dramas such as Joe All Alone, in which a 13-year-old boy is left to fend for himself at home while his mother is on holiday with her unpleasant boyfriend.

“I always felt like an outsider myself – I had a completely different background to so many people in the industry,” Beryl explained. “Maybe that was why I was drawn to stories that I felt weren’t being told. We get a filtered vision of our country – there are interesting stories out there, and interesting actors to tell them.”

Beryl’s latest work, feature documentary Hello Stranger, is due for release at the end of this year, and is her most personal to date. It incorporates almost three decades of home footage of her adopted son Joe’s experience of neurodiversity. “Joe has been a big figure in my life; I’ve had to pivot a lot to help him find his way in life,” she said. “Hello Stranger is rocky in places, joyous in others.”