ACTOR and Morning Star supporter Maxine Peake is to receive this year’s Gerrard Winstanley Spade Award presented annually by the Wigan Diggers Festival committee.

The accolade is for her “outstanding contribution to the cause of making the Earth a common treasury for all” in the spirit of Winstanley and the 17th-century Diggers’ movement.

Ms Peake, who is known for her roles in Silk, Shameless, Dinnerladies and The Village, wrote and performed in a play on Radio 4 about the Women Against Pit Closures’s occupation of Parkside Colliery at Newton-le-Willows in 1994.

The Gerrard Winstanley award was introduced at last year’s Wigan Diggers’ Festival and was presented to Tony Benn.

This year’s festival is in Wigan on Saturday, September 13, from 11 am to 9.30pm.