He opened the envelope expecting a penalty. Tony Iommi received his MBE from the Princess Royal at a Windsor Castle investiture on Wednesday, one of sixty seven people honoured there.
The award was announced in June, in the King's Birthday Honours. Iommi's account of finding out is the best part of it. "It was such a shock, because we were away, and when we got back, there's all these letters there we're going to open, bills and this and that and the other," he said. "And I saw this and I thought it was a speeding fine, to be honest. Opened it up and God, it was a shock." His wife Maria asked what the matter was. "I said, God, look at this."
The Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was established by King George V in June 1917 and recognises a significant contribution in a person's line of work. In Iommi's case that line of work is one he had a large hand in inventing, from a factory accident that cost him two fingertips and forced him to detune a guitar and build thimbles out of a washing-up liquid bottle.