The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards with TSB will be broadcast to the nation on ITV at 8pm - and there are sure to be no dry eyes in living room across the land.
The Awards, celebrated ordinary people doing extraordinary things, were held on Monday.
Co-hosted by Carol Vorderman and Ashley Banjo, in front of a star-studded audience, the Awards featured extraordinary stories of bravery, selflessness and phenomenal fundraising feats.
There was also be plenty of jaw-dropping surprises, laughs and emotional moments.
While huge stars from the worlds of film, television, music and sport, united to pay tribute to members of the public whose achievements are truly inspirational.
Winners that are sure to capture the nation’s hearts and imagination include:
- A teenager who saved the lives of a young boy and her father before coming close to being swept to her death in a river.
- The brave police officers wounded in a frenzied knife attack as they battled to keep shoppers and children safe.
- A sailor who led a four-hour mission to save 27 men from a burning ship in towering seas
- A once naughty child who didn’t let years of struggle and an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis stop him when he became one of the first people with the condition to join the Royal Air Force
- A schoolboy who tackles endurance challenges on his walking frame to raise money and awareness of what life is like for people with disabilities
More than 150 of the UK's biggest stars came together to celebrate, including: Idris Elba, Michael Sheen, Anna Friel, Frank and Christine Lampard, Derek Chisora, Dame Mary Berry, Holly Willoughby, Big Narstie, Molly May Hague and Tommy Fury, Olly Murs, Kate Garraway and Emily Atack.
Host Ms Vorderman said: “Pride of Britain is all about the winners.
"We have so many nominations, and our team and judges work incredibly hard to make sure we are celebrating the most extraordinary people.
"Meeting them is the absolute highlight of my year.”
Co-host Mr Banjo added: “It is always such a humbling experience to meet the Pride of Britain winners.
"They make you feel good about the world we live in and inspire you to think how you can help to make it a better place.”
Robin Bulloch, Chief Executive Officer, TSB said: “It’s an honour for TSB to be supporting the Pride of Britain Awards for the seventh year in a row, and I was delighted to be part of the judging panel.
"With so many outstanding acts of selflessness, endeavour and courage in the face of adversity, it’s been incredibly difficult to pick the winners.
"We’re especially proud to sponsor the TSB Community Hero Award, which shines a light on people doing their utmost to make a difference to the lives of people around them.”
You can also watch Pride of Britain's ' Facebook Live from the Red Carpet' hosted by Sam Thompson and Vicky Pattison, on Monday October 24, @prideofbritain on Facebook and Instagram, from 5pm.
Watch the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards with TSB on Thursday 27th October, ITV, 8pm.
FULL LIST OF WINNERS:
Lifetime Achievement - JILL ALLEN-KING, 82, Southend-on-Sea
Pioneering activist has spent her life campaigning on behalf of other blind and partially sighted people, with remarkable results.
After losing her sight on her wedding day, Jill has spent the last 50 years working to improve the lives of other blind and partially sighted people in the UK and across Europe.
Born fully sighted in 1940, a bout of measles meant Jill had to have one of her eyes removed as a baby.
Aged just 24, on her wedding day, she lost her sight completely because of glaucoma - unrelated to her childhood illness.
When Jill found out she was pregnant a few months later, doctors urged her to have an abortion - saying her blindness would make her an unfit mother.
She insisted on keeping the baby but eventually conceded to being sterilised. For the next seven years blindness rendered Jill virtually housebound.
Then in 1972 she got her first guide dog, Topsy and joined the National Federation of the Blind. Since then, she has been working to improve the lives of blind and partially sighted people.
Appalled at how few places allowed guide dogs - including one instance where she was denied entry to a public library - Jill began campaigning for better access to public spaces for the vital support animals.
Today, they are allowed in many more places including shops, restaurants, cinemas and the House of Commons. She also initiated tactile paving at pedestrian crossings, earning her an MBE in 1983 - although at the time her guide dog was not allowed to accompany her to the ceremony.
Jill went on to be awarded an OBE in 2011 and continues to campaign for better access to fair benefits and financial support.
Now 82, Jill has given hundreds of talks to schoolchildren, raised thousands of pounds for blindness charities and became the first female president of the National Federation of the Blind UK.
And she shows no signs of slowing down.
She says: “I want to sit back and relax, but there is still so much to campaign for. The rights of blind people are continuing not to be considered, so I will keep working to fight that.”
Child of Courage - ELIZABETH SOFFE, 8, Birmingham
School girl who inspired medics with her courage after a horrific cot fire - then raised £202,000 for the hospital that saved her life.
Elizabeth was just six months old when she almost died in a cot fire, suffering life-changing, third-degree burns over 60 per cent of her body.
Her family was living in Qatar, where dad Liam was working as an engineer, when a faulty air conditioner sparked a blaze, engulfing her room and cot.
As Liam recalls: “Her mum went inside and the room was on fire. The cot was on fire. Elizabeth was on fire.”
As baby Elizabeth fought for her life - as well as burns she had lost most of her fingers, part of her nose and an ear - Qatari doctors said they didn’t have the expertise to save her.
In a frantic race against time, she was flown to Britain and admitted to the specialist burns unit at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
“That first day, they were very clear with us that she might not survive,” Liam says.
Elizabeth spent weeks in a coma, followed by six months in intensive care, and has undergone more than 70 operations.
She has grafts and reconstructive surgery every six months and needs regular physiotherapy to help ease her scars.
Last year, wanting to thank the medics who saved her life, Elizabeth undertook a charity challenge; running a mile a day for 26 days, including 73 laps of her garden during periods of isolation, raising £202,000.
Despite everything she has gone through, Elizabeth refuses to feel sorry for herself, telling people: "It doesn’t matter what you look like, it just matters that you’re kind.”
Mum Sinead adds that her daughter’s positivity and spirit is an inspiration to them all.
“We're always envisaging something that might be difficult for her, and she'll totally prove us wrong every single time,” she says.
“She’s amazing, she wows us every day and the fact she wants to help others is just so her. This award means the world to her - and us.”
Teenager of Courage - LUCY MONTGOMERY, 15, Armagh, Northern Ireland
Teenager who saved the lives of a young boy and her father after they were swept away by treacherous river currents Lucy was on holiday with her family in France, when the terrifying situation unfolded.
She was paddle-boarding in the Charente River with Mathieu, the young son of a family friend, when she noticed he was in trouble.
Mathieu, eight, had started drifting away, pulled by a strong current which was taking him into much deeper, dangerous waters.
When Mathieu started to panic, Lucy, then 14, immediately tried to reassure him and walked alongside him in shallow water close to the riverbank.
Her father Graham, who can’t swim, was also walking along in the water to try and help.
As the flow of the river became stronger, Mathieu and his paddle board were swept away.
Lucy, from Armagh in Northern Ireland, realised this was now a life or death situation.
She told her father to turn back, and started to swim out to Mathieu herself, managing to reach the frightened boy and drag him to the bank.
However, as she did, the current and volume of moving water swept Graham off his feet and into the deeper part of the river.
Seeing her dad was also now in grave danger, Lucy got back into the river and swam to him; urging him to turn onto his back so he would float.
She managed to pull him to the edge and he was helped to safety with the assistance of Mathieu’s father, Pascal.
But Lucy’s ordeal wasn’t over.
Exhausted after dragging two people against the current, she had no strength left to fight the flow herself, and was pulled out into deep water.
With no energy left to swim, she spotted her paddle board floating and managed to grab it, clinging on and finally drifting to the safety of the riverbank.
Graham, a head teacher, says: “I can’t swim and there was a limit to what I could do.
“I have no doubt that Lucy’s quick and decisive actions that afternoon prevented injury and perhaps worse to a frightened child and prevented me from drowning.
“As a family we couldn’t be prouder to see her recognised in this way.”
Special Recognition - 3 DADS WALKING, Manchester, Norfolk, Cumbria
Three men who lost their daughters to suicide embarked on a fundraising walk that inspired the nation and raised more than £880,000 for charity.
After enduring the most heart-breaking loss imaginable, Andy Airey, 61, Mike Palmer, 57, and Tim Owen, 52, forged a close bond when they met through the suicide prevention charity, Papyrus.
Andy’s 29-year-old daughter Sophie died just before Christmas 2018.
Mike's daughter Beth was just 17 when she took her own life in March 2020, a few days after Tim's 18-year-old daughter Emily, who like Beth, felt overwhelmed by pandemic restrictions, passed away.
The trio came up with the idea of a sponsored walk between their homes in Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Norfolk to raise funds for Papyrus, and awareness of suicide in young people.
Their initial target was £3,000, but as word of their challenge spread, donations hit a staggering £880,000.
They met hundreds of people affected by suicide over the course of their 15-day walk and campaigned for additional mental health support in schools.
Their next walk saw the dads trekking 550 miles over 31 days, taking in all four UK parliaments, ending on 10th October 2022, World Mental Health Day, and taking their fund-raising total to more than £1 million.
Andy says: “During our walk we met very many suicide-bereaved parents, all of them said the same thing; it was only after they lost their child that they discovered that suicide was the biggest killer of under 35’s in the UK; they all asked, ‘If suicide is the biggest threat to our children’s lives, why is no one talking about it?’”
Mike adds: “3 Dads Walking is not a club I want to belong to, but it gives us, as fathers, an opportunity to fight back and maybe make a difference.
"We are all too aware that there are more young people out there falling into despair and see no way out other than to end their own precious lives. There is help out there. There is hope and that's what 3 Dads Walking is about, it's about hope.”
Outstanding Bravery - DAVID GROVES AND ALEX HARVEY, 32 and 28, Somerset and Hull
Sailors led a four-hour mission to save 27 men from a burning ship in towering seas, in one of the Royal Navy's most dramatic rescues HMS Argyll was returning to Plymouth following a nine-month tour of duty in the Pacific.
The Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate was travelling through a storm in the Bay of Biscay when it received a mayday call from the Grande America, a 28,000-tonne cargo ship which had caught fire 150 miles off the French coast.
Aboard the Argyll, Leading Seaman David Groves and Able Seaman Alex Harvey, volunteered to enter the water in an eight metre rigid inflatable boat.
As they were lowered into the six-metre waves, David realised how extreme the situation had become.
“One minute you could see a ship on fire, the next it was hidden by a wall of water.
And the closer we got, the more engulfed we were in the smoke,” said David, 32, from Taunton in Somerset.
When the pair reached the merchant ship they faced a lengthy wait as the crew struggled to launch their lifeboat – the Grande America’s high side and rough weather ruled out climbing down the ladder and into David and Alex’s inflatable.
When the lifeboat eventually launched, it hit the water with such force that the engine was disabled, leaving the craft impossible to manoeuvre and drifting dangerously close to the burning ship.
Realising lives were at stake, David managed to bring his boat nose-to-nose with the lifeboat.
With Alex on the bow judging the right moment as the two craft lurched up and down in the swell, four of the merchant crew jumped from a small hatch into Argyll’s boat.
Alex, 28, from Hull, said: “It was rough – very rough and as we got near to the ship, it turned out to be a lot worse than we’d imagined it.
“When the first guy jumped, I had to grab him to prevent him going overboard. I thought to myself: This is a bit hairy.”
No more of the Grande America crew were able to leap between the two boats, and the waves snapped a tow rope, so David used his initiative and skill to nudge the lifeboat half a mile to the Argyll, where sailors and Royal Marines were waiting to haul the exhausted casualties to safety.
Commanding Officer of HMS Argyll, Commander Toby Shaughnessy said: “Without doubt this was a near run thing. The conditions were on the limit for recovery and this could just as easily have been a different result.”
TSB Community Hero - MICHELLE DORNELLY, London
Selfless mum-of-four who works tirelessly to feed and support families in her community.
When Michelle Dornelly realised how many of her neighbours in Hackney, East London, were going hungry, she decided to take direct action; stepping in to help.
Despite being a mum of four and struggling to get by on Universal Credit payments herself, in April 2020 she formed the Hackney Community Food Hub.
Putting calls out via social media she has gone on to develop a team of 100 volunteers and has fed more than 100,000 people, including those who are housebound or homeless.
With no permanent base of their own, Michelle and the Food Hub team still have to collect and deliver supplies to venues across the borough.
They collect food surplus and make it available - as cupboard supplies or hot meals - with no referral needed.
As a community they respond to calls for help 24/7, stepping up at Christmas and other holidays to provide essentials, extra food and gifts.
Without a base, Michelle has to store these supplies in her own home - filling her freezer and piling up boxes in her front room - and works full-time and unpaid, making deliveries and drop-offs across the borough.
With winter coming, the team says demand for their help is only going to grow.
Michelle says: “I know people who have five or six children at home. Furlough has finished and their benefits have gone down. Gas prices have gone up.
"They’re asking me: do I heat the home or fill the children’s bellies and we go cold?
"If you live on an estate you are hidden, you are forgotten about and you are hard to reach.
"So we were going out specifically to reach those people.
“I’m experiencing the same situation everyone else is experiencing. I am still struggling myself. My life is not my own, I eat, breathe and sleep this.”
Volunteer Grace, explains: “Thanks to Michelle, we are a community hub and that word community runs through everything that we do.”
And Michelle’s daughter Renisha adds: “Day in and day out, I have seen my Mum work hard for her community.
"Not one day goes by where she is not working: her drive, compassion, love, commitment and motivation are some of the things I look up to. I could not be prouder of the lady I call my Mum.”
This Morning Emergency Services Award - PC JAMES WILLETTS AND PC LEON MITTOO, 25 and 34, West Midlands
Courageous police officers were wounded in a frenzied knife attack as they battled to keep shoppers and children safe.
James and Leon were patrolling New Square shopping centre in West Bromwich last July when they became suspicious of two men carrying large backpacks and wearing heavy clothing - despite it being a swelteringly hot day.
When they challenged the men, they refused to stop and ran off.
As the officers gave chase, the situation took a horrifying turn. One of the men produced a large knife and lunged at the officers.
James recalls: “He ran towards me screaming, brandishing something and swinging around erratically.”
Leon was stabbed repeatedly - sustaining serious injuries to his back, body and head while James received a head wound that was millimetres away from being life-threatening.
As terrified shoppers ran for safety, despite bleeding from their wounds, both officers managed to remain calm and subdue and detain the men.
Fellow officers later discovered an arsenal of weapons in their bags, including a machete, knives and an imitation firearm.
Brothers Parminder Hunjan, 37, and Maninder Hunjan, 26, went on to receive jail sentences totalling 26 years, in May 2022.
Speaking about the incident, Leon said: "I thought I was going to die. I just did everything I could. It was a fight for survival.”
James added: “In our training we're taught if it ever comes to knives, a slice in the wrong place and you can bleed out in minutes.
"There were loads of people around screaming, we were conscious there were children nearby. Shops had put their shutters down, making sure the people inside were safe. You don't think about yourself, you're thinking about everyone else."
Douglas Marshall of the Crown Prosecution Service said the officers’ courageous actions had saved others from serious harm, averting a potential tragedy.
“The officers unhesitatingly put themselves in harm’s way and through their brave actions the pair were disarmed.
"Given the arsenal of weapons the brothers were carrying, the potential outcome could have been much worse.”
GMB Young Fundraiser of the Year - TOBIAS WELLER, 11, Sheffield
Schoolboy tackles endurance challenges on his walking frame to raise money and awareness of what life is like for people with disabilities.
Tobias lives with autism and cerebral palsy but refuses to let anything stop him trying to help others by taking on a series of gruelling physical challenges.
So far, the schoolboy from Sheffield, South Yorks, has completed two marathons, an Iron Man and a sponsored walk to raise more than £158,000 for a range of good causes, including his school and Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
Tobias was nicknamed 'Captain' after he was inspired by his hero Captain Sir Tom Moore to start raising money during the pandemic lockdowns.
He covered the Iron Man distance over the course of a year, covering 112 miles on his trike, swimming 2.5 miles and running 26 miles with the help of his frame.
After crossing the finish line, Tobias said: “It feels magnificent. This challenge has taken me over a year to complete. And I’m so excited I’ve finally reached my goal. I feel awesome.
“I like pushing myself as hard as I can and enjoying myself at the same time so completing challenges lets me do this.”
His recent Tobias in the Park event saw members of the public join him for a sponsored stroll, raising money for new playground equipment that is accessible to disabled children.
In December he became the youngest person to be celebrated in the New Year’s Honours List, when he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his efforts.
His mum, Ruth Garbutt, says: “I’m bursting with pride for what my son has accomplished and I’m delighted that his efforts have been recognised in so many ways.
“We could never have dreamed he might be able to do things like that and he’s done it and that makes me so so proud of him.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop him from wanting to carry on setting himself challenges and meeting his targets and raising lots of money for charity.”
Tobias's fundraising challenges have been followed around the UK and he has been singled out for praise by dozens of leaders and celebrities, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Olympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill.
Prince’s Trust Young Achiever of the Year – ALEX ANDERSON, 22, Newport
Being labelled a naughty child and moving school four times made Alex’s early years a struggle, but an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis was the start of a change in his life and he eventually became one of the first people with the condition to join the Royal Air Force.
“It was very hard, schools didn’t know how to deal with me,” says Alex.
“When I was nine, I got my diagnosis and was able to learn coping mechanisms with the right support.”
Alex had long wanted to join the RAF but was rejected in 2017 due to his condition.
“I was disappointed and knew I needed to find ways to keep developing my confidence and skills.
"The pandemic made everything really hard because all the things I enjoyed stopped.
"I started to feel lost and gaining employment in the RAF seemed impossible.”
Alex signed up for an online employability course with The Prince’s Trust that gave him the support and encouragement he needed to start applying for jobs again.
Around this time, Alex also channelled his energy into a variety of volunteering projects.
In addition to joining RAF cadets, he volunteered more than 1000 hours of his time supporting veterans, the elderly and young people across Gwent.
After entry rules for the RAF changed, Alex decided to re-apply with the help of The Trust and was delighted to be offered a role as a logistic supplier.
He’s now based at RAF Odiham and continues his passion for volunteering through his role as a Neurodiversity Ambassador for the RAF.
Alex adds: “I’ve had so many knock-backs, but The Prince’s Trust got me through.”
Special Award - THE LIONESSES England’s European Champions
They did more than win a trophy - they galvanised the nation and gave a whole generation new role models.
So many moments from this glorious summer of women’s football will live long in the memory - Alessia Russo’s backheel, Georgia Stanway’s rocket, unsung hero Mary Earps’ saves, that celebration from Chloe Kelly, and of course the constant calm authority of Sarina Wiegman in the dugout.
But the true impact of this incredible team was felt off the pitch.
In stadiums packed with the biggest crowds ever seen for a women’s tournament, and in living rooms across the country where the eyes of a generation of young girls were opened to new possibilities.
This was more than football coming home - this was football coming of age, heralding a future where the women’s and men’s game will one day stand equal.
