He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1997 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to literature.

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to Literature.

He was nominated for Broadway's 1986 Tony Award for Best Score with collaborator William P. Perry for "Wind in the Willows.".

Barnes, London, England (May 2009)

Since he had grown up in Liverpool and attended school with John Lennon, McGough was brought in to do some uncredited script doctoring on Yellow Submarine (1968), to make the dialogue more 'scouse' (Liverpudlian), after complaints that most of it was too 'American' because most of the writers up to that point were in fact from the U.S. and Canada.