AN ex-RAF pilot from Dartmouth has been honoured for dedicating his life to helping thousands of people overcome reading and writing difficulties.

Trevor Swan Ford has been awarded a British Empire Medal in this year's Queen's birthday honours list.

The 92-year-old, who is currently in hospital recovering from a stroke, received the award for his services to special needs education.

Mr Swan Ford has spent nearly 50 years helping people struggling with dyslexia.

While he was in the RAF, he started teaching Canadian pilots how to read and write. His interest in dyslexia continued at London University where he studied phonetics and linguistics.

In the 1970s, he started working at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, alongside the late Dr Bevé Hornsby, a clinical psychologist, teacher and speech therapist.

He eventually took over the word-blind clinic, where he taught hundreds of thousands to overcome dyslexia.

Forty years ago, Mr Swan Ford moved to Dartmouth, where he continued his work – launching the South Devon Dyslexia Association, which still runs operates today from the Courtney Centre in Newton Abbot, with the help of his daughter Jude, who has been training with him for the past 15 years.

He has been an honorary member of the British Dyslexia Association and a few years ago was named as South Devon Education Worker of the Year.

More recently he has been developing a complete 'learn to read, write and spell' literacy program for schools or to use at home, throught his company Dyspell Ltd.

His daughter Jude, who lives in Brixham, said: 'He started Dyspell to keep up with the times and to reinforce the methods he taught. It has always been his passion to ensure that every child can get to secondary school and that everyone realises that if you have dyslexia you can have just as high an IQ as someone who doesn't, sometimes even higher.

'He has always been a great source of inspiration and is always full of energy.'

Jude originally nominated him for the honours list six years ago, so was overjoyed to see that he had been at long last recognised for the work he has done over the past 50 years.

Trevor has four children and lives with his second wife, Jeanne.

When Trevor's family told him that he had made the Queen's birthday honours list, his response was simply: 'Oh that's marvellous.'

She said that before he suffered a stroke, her father, who will celebrate his 93rd birthday in October, devoted every spare minute , researching and experimenting, to find ways to transform the lives of young learners.

She said: 'In 1998, he began using all his passionate innovation to design and create a computer literacy program, originally produced on floppy disks using a BBC computer.

'He even remortgaged his house so that he could fund the project and, in 2005, the Dyspell literacy disk was created with the express purpose of helping slow learners and dyslexic children right through primary school, enabling them to enter secondary school with confidence.

'In spite of now suffering from severe macular degeneration, he is determined to dispel the stigma that is still attached to dyslexia.

'He probably knows more about dyslexia and has taught more students than anyone else in the country.'

She added: 'He has earned tremendous respect from his peers and has become a role model in the field of dyslexia tuition.'