Buckingham man honoured for services to Bletchley Park and eyesight charity

A Buckingham man has been recognised by the Queen in the New Year Honours list.

Christopher Moore, who is vice-chair of the Bletchley Park Trust and a former chair of the charity Fight For Sight, has been awarded an MBE for charitable and voluntary services to Heritage and to Visually Impaired People.

Mr Moore, aged 77, has been vice-chair of the Bletchley Park Trust over the past three decades, and was previously chair of the trust’s executive committee.

Twenty years ago, Bletchley Park, home of the pioneering and critical intelligence contributions in support of Allied military operations in the Second World War, was faced with closure and being redeveloped as a housing estate.

Today, it is a household name, and a museum dedicated to its unique history.

During Mr Moore's chairmanship, annual visitor numbers rose from under 50,000 to more than 250,000.

As a pilot himself, he has taken an equal interest in Fight For Sight, the UK’s largest charity funding pioneering eye research, becoming a trustee in 1993 before it merged with the Iris Fund in 2005, which he oversaw.

One of the groundbreaking achievements during his tenure as chair has been the development of a treatment for chloridaemia, an inherited condition that causes progressive vision loss, ultimately leading to complete blindness.

From its beginnings in 2005, the therapy progressed through various stages over the next 10 years, finally achieving commercial application in 2015, able to offer the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.

As chair, Mr Moore now acts as an ambassador for the charity.