Singer-songwriter Toyah Willcox has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Worcester.<\/p>\n
During a career spanning more than four decades, Willcox recorded 25 albums, achieved 13 Top 40 singles, appeared in more than 20 feature films and over 40 stage productions.<\/p>\n
Alongside her artistic achievements, she has been a patron of the Avon Navigation Trust since 2024, supporting environmental education and youth programmes.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the ceremony at Worcester Cathedral on Tuesday, she said: “I’m so proud and it’s such an honour to be asked by Worcester University because I live within this area.”<\/p>\n
She added: “The area means everything to me. My friends [and] my family all love Worcester and where I live.<\/p>\n
The Birmingham-born singer, who now lives in Pershore, said she had been “very surprised in a very pleasant way” to open the letter confirming her honorary title. <\/p>\n
“It’s fabulous to have this and to be seen and heard.”<\/p>\n
But she said she felt “pretty terrified” to address the students at their graduation.<\/p>\n
“There’s a huge gap in age between me and these students,” Willcox said.<\/p>\n
“I’m 68, they will be around the age of 20, and everything that influenced me is not in their sphere. <\/p>\n
“So I wanted to talk to them in a way that I thought would help them, but it’s about communication, it’s about kindness, it’s about friendship, it’s about revision and always learning. <\/p>\n
“I tried to find stories from my past that I know will resonate with them when they step into the outside world.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer-songwriter Toyah Willcox has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Worcester. During a career spanning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-885312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}