When triple Olympian Karen Pickering was born in December 1971, the now legendary rock group Roxy Music were just striking their first chords on their first tour and starting to compose their early hits of 'Virginia Plain', 'Pyjamarama' and 'Street Life'. Now, three decades later, Ms Pickering MBE is one of Britain's most successful swimmers of all time with gold medals from World Championships and Commonwealth Games to her credit and memories of breaking the British record in the 200m Freestyle just days ago still fresh in her mind.

In a few weeks time the Ipswich based freestyler, who admits to preferring hip hop and R and B to rock, is about to meet up with her Suffolk neighbour and Roxy's guitarist Brian Eno when they both receive honorary degrees from the University of East Anglia. Not surprisingly, Eno will receive a Doctorate of Music whilst Karen will be awarded a Doctorate of Civil Law, alongside another Suffolk celebrity Ralph Fiennes, star of the 1997 film 'The English Patient'.

In their quest for people who have made a significant contribution to Ipswich or Suffolk and have an international reputation, the university recognised Karen Pickering qualified on all counts. The ceremony takes place in October, some weeks after Karen competes for Great Britain in the World Swimming Championships in Japan. She admits to being thrilled at the prospect of receiving the degree.

"I was very surprised. It's obviously a very big honour. It's really nice to receive recognition from people outside of the sport of swimming."