'Magical' as Lennox collects OBE

Musician Annie Lennox has described being awarded with the OBE by the Queen as "magical".

The former Eurythmics singer was honoured for her work fighting Aids and poverty in Africa in an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Lennox, 56, said: "It's quite magical. It's really meaningful to me that it's for charity work.

"Campaigning has been taking up a great deal of my commitment for quite a few years, and what it means is that there's a significance to what I'm doing - I'm not just working in a void. To get this acknowledgement means people are listening."

She met the Queen earlier this year at a Westminster Abbey service for Commonwealth Day, and said the monarch remembered the "HIV Positive" T-shirt she wore on that occasion.

Asked if she had been tempted to wear a similar T-shirt to receive her OBE, Lennox smiled and replied: "I don't think I would have got away with wearing that."

Instead, Lennox - accompanied by her daughters Tali and Lola - wore a purple taffeta dress with a pleated skirt, topped off with a matching vintage felt hat.

The Aberdeen-born artist's pearl accessories were not as expensive as they looked. Lennox admitted with a smile: "My bracelet and necklace are from a Christmas cracker."

She has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide with the Eurythmics and as a solo star, winning a string of awards including Grammys, Brits, Ivor Novellos and an Oscar.

Lennox joked that she would be happy to receive another OBE for her musical work, but said of her campaigning: "Whatever you do, you do out of a passion. You don't think about rewards, you think about what you're doing for its own value. If people then give you recognition for it, that's wonderful."

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