From night call to knighthood - that's what happened to Bellshill Nobel prize winning chemist David MacMillan!

The caller was Dame Karen Pierce, the British Ambassador to the United States and the man on the other end of the phone was former Bellshill Academy pupil David MacMillan who was travelling in South Korea.

He then learned that he would receive a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List

And David admits he was knocked for six by the call that came out the blue which took place a few weeks ago.

He said: “As usual, I just started tearing up. You grow up as this working-class kid in Scotland, and then you find yourself on the phone in Korea in the middle of the night and someone’s telling you you’ve just been knighted by the Queen.”

David, who teaches at Princeton University in New Jersey USA, was then tasked with keeping his amazing news a secret until it was officially announced last week.

He has taken time out to tell his former local paper what the reaction has been at the university and how a gift from a friend with a wicked sense of humour has taken the notion of knighthood quite literally and above all, how proud he is of his roots too in the Bellshill area.

For more, see page 3.