A Corfe Mullen man has been awarded the highest honour that the first country of the British Empire can bestow.

Proud Alan Perry is the first Englishman ever to receive the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, given to people who have made outstanding contributions to the province and its people.

Dorset’s links with the Canadian province were forged through the cod trade from the 1500s and for the past 25 years the retired wine shipper has been strengthening those ties.

It started by chance after a Canadian film crew visited his Poole Quay warehouse and pointed out Perrys had left Poole for Newfoundland 150 years before.

Alan and wife Jillian arrived at the island off Quebec for a holiday and discovered a “fantastic place”.

“I always loved history,” said grandfather Alan, 73, who is a life member of the Society of Dorset Men and the Priest House Museum, Wimborne, and former chairman of Wessex Newfoundland Society.

Over the years he has re-built from scratch the first brick house ever built in Newfoundland in the 1760s, the Lester Garland house at Trinity, which is now a museum and learning centre and is a copy of Post Green at Lytchett Minster.

To help raise the £600,000 necessary he pedalled his penny-farthing bicycle 164 miles from Trinity to the capital St John’s and the house was re-built in 1996/97.

Twelve years ago he successfully twinned Bournemouth University with Memorial University, the only one in Newfoundland, and is heavily involved in this year’s 400th anniversary of the first English settlement at Cupid Cove.

On his 59th visit, with his wife and daughters Nicola and Victoria, he was presented with the medal by the Governor John Crosbie, in front of Premier Danny Williams.

“It’s a huge honour,” said a delighted Alan, “equivalent in England to receiving a peerage.”