Awards to honour Bristol's Gold Star winners

by Julie Harding

This year's Gold Star winners are to be honoured at a a special awards ceremony at the city's Marriott Hotel.

Joining them on Friday will be family and friends, and a host of celebrities including comic Bobby Davro who is appearing in Cinderella at the Bristol Hippodrome and fellow comedian Eddie Large.

From the world of sport, the UK's most successful woman boxer Jane Couch is attending, along with broadcaster and former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper, Bob Wilson.

GWR's morning show presenters Andy Bush and Paris Troy and Richard Wyatt from Radio Bristol are presenting the awards.

ITV West presenters Lisa Aziz and Jed Pitman and newscaster Susan Osman, who has a dual career as an interfaith minister, are also among our guests as well as TV presenter Sherrie Eugene and former HTV newsman 'uncle' Bruce Hockin.

Kingswood singer Marisa Billitteri, now pursuing a solo career after making it to the finals of the X Factor with Girlband, is also turning up.

And local MPs Dawn Primarolo, Dr Liam Fox, Roger Berry, Stephen Williams, Steve Webb and Doug Naysmith, all of whom have constituents receiving awards on Friday, are attending to honour them.

Bristol's Lord Mayor and former policeman Councillor Chris Davies is no stranger to the awards ceremony, having collected two Gold Star awards himself for acts of bravery, including tackling a bank robber.

All our VIP guests have kindly given their time freely to attend today's 14th awards ceremony which could not take place without the generosity of the Gold Star sponsor, First Bristol.

The Bristol Post's editor-in-chief Mike Norton said: "This is always a special day in our year, one to which we really look forward.

"Each of our Gold Star winners has shown remarkable spirit, often in the face of odds that seem overwhelming.

"We are delighted to be able to recognise them with these awards."

Each award winner will receive a cheque together with a Bristol Blue Glass engraved goblet and a framed copy of their story as it appeared in the Bristol Post.

Some of our Gold Star recipients have saved lives, some have cared for others and some have shown great bravery in the face of adversity, trauma or danger.

Among them is shop assistant Ann Withers, 55, who fought off two robbers with a broom at the Premier Convenience Store in Mead Vale, Worle, Weston-super-Mare where she works.

Two masked and hooded men came into the shop and attacked her boss Gully Hayer one morning in July.

They struck at him with claw hammers and demanded money from the till.

Quick-thinking Ann grabbed a broom and hit the intruders with it until they fled from the store empty-handed.

The plucky grandmother said she only did what anyone else would have done in the same situation.

She told the Bristol Post: "When faced with a situation like that, you just get on and do the job that has to be done."

Paratrooper Stuart Hale, 26, did just that. Despite losing one of his legs when a landmine exploded he insisted on returning to Afghanistan to serve as an intelligence officer.

Corporal Hale, who grew up in Patchway, was injured in September 2006 when he and four comrades strayed into a minefield. One of his friends died and Cpl Hale's right leg was blown off.

He held it in his arms for five hours while waiting to be rescued but it was too badly damaged to saved and he now wears a camouflage-coloured prosthesis.

Cpl Hale, of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, became the first British amputee to return to duty in Afghanistan.

Managing director of awards sponsor First Bristol, Justin Davies, said Cpl Hale had shown immense strength of character and sense of duty and would be an inspiration to many people.

Dave Ford, 36, was our first Gold Star award winner of 2008 when he saved the life of his friend and team-mate Gary Iles who suffered a cardiac arrest during a football match.

Mr Iles, 28, had been playing with his team Slightly Athletic for about 20 minutes when he collapsed during a game at Yate Leisure Centre in December 2007.

Mr Ford, from Yate, who was trained in first aid by the Territorial Army, resuscitated his friend, keeping his heart and breathing going until an ambulance arrived.

Father-of-two Mr Iles spent more than a month in hospital and had a pacemaker fitted.

He said at the time that he could not thank his friend enough for what he did. Modest Mr Ford said he was just in the right place at the right time and was glad he could help.

Teenagers Tom Pool and Kieran Portas received their Gold Award for rescuing a couple trapped in their burning house.

The pair were playing computer games at Kieran's house in Soundwell when Kieran's mother spotted the fire in nearby Middle Road.

They could see Boyd Carter, 50, and Wendy Ryan, 46, leaning out of a rear window screaming for help. The couple were trapped in a bedroom as the fire raged on the ground floor.

Kieran and Tom, helped by Kieran's father Kit, 41, ran down a back lane to the burning building taking a ladder with them.

They used the ladder to reach the window and rescue the couple who had suffered smoke inhalation.

After being told he and Kieran would be getting an award Tom, from Kingswood, said: "I'm really shocked. I honestly don't really think that it was a particularly big deal.

"We just saw they needed help and did it."

John Skinner and Roger Riggs received a Gold Star award for raising more than £390,000 for charity.

The businessmen persuaded, cajoled and begged friends to donate money to the Willow Foundation set up by former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper Bob Wilson and his wife Meg in memory of their daughter Anna who died from cancer at the age of 31.

The foundation provides speical days for seriously ill young adults with life-threatening conditions.

Mr Riggs, of Almondsbury, and Mr Skinner, from Long Ashton, have organised a series of fundraising events over the past four years including ladies' nights, charity auctiions and two golfing days.

Brave Kray Mundy got his award for the courage and determination he showed in recovering from a stroke he suffered in June at the age of 11.

Kray, from Hartcliffe, was paralysed on his left side and doctors told his mum Soniya and dad Adrian that it could take two years for Kray to walk again.

But the determined lad was back on his feet within a month and his proud mum said he never once complained and was an inspiration to others.

Plumber Daniel Tripp, from Speedwell, received his Gold Star award for the part he played in apprehending a suspected burglar.

Daniel, 19, had just finished a job at a house in Morse Road, Redfield, in February when he heard a commotion along the road and saw a woman with a baby struggling with a man.

The woman was screaming, saying the man had been in her house robbing her.

The man ran off and Daniel ran after him, following him through the streets of east Bristol.

Daniel called 999 during the chase telling them where the man was and officers arrested him in a garden.

Another deserving winner was Sue McMullen who has dedicated herself to improving the lives of disabled people.

She chairs the Vassall Centre Trust in Fishponds which provides barrier-free offices so that people with all forms of impairment can work on equal terms with able-bodied people.

Sue, from Westbury-on-Trym, contracted polio as a child and gradually lost her mobility. She has been a wheelchair user for 12 years and ten years ago founded the Vassal Centre Trust.

Based in a former World War II military hospital in Gill Avenue, the centre is a nationally recognised Centre of Excellence which houses 14 organisations and charities which are led by and employ disabled people.

Little Jessica Maggs showed amazing bravery and resilience coping with treatment for leukaemia which was diagnosed on New Year's Eve last year when she was only two years and ten months old.

The diagnosis was a terrible shock for her parents Bristol Rugby and former Ireland international Kevin Maggs and his wife Jayne.

Jessica underwent months of chemotherapy but throughout it all she managed to keep smiling and is now back at home and doing well.

Brothers Josh and Bradley Hucker received their award for their quick-thinking and sensible actions when their grandmother collapsed.

Josh, eight and Bradley, four, found their grandma Gillian Butland lying unconscious on the decking outside their Whitchurch home.

The boys somehow got her inside and Josh dialled 999 to call for an ambulance.

Gillian, 57, had been looking after the boys and their four-month-old sister Lauren. Their mum and dad Claire and Craig Hucker said they are so proud of their sons.

Bus driver Mike Fleming is the winner of this year's Ken Thorkildsen Gold Star award for his tireless efforts to promote Remembrance Day at work and within his community.

The award is given by First in memory of Ken Thorkildsen, who was a driver, an inspector and a manager with the bus company until his death in 2005.

Mr Fleming, 65, from Bedminster, who served in the Navy, organises a Remembrance service at the Lawrence Hill bus depot every year to pay tribute to the employees who fought in the world wars and also civilians who lost their lives when buses were hit in the Bristol Blitz.

Justin Davies of First said: "Mike has done a terrific amount to promote remembrance both within First and in the community as a whole."

The extraordinary achievement of two Bristol men who rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic was also recognised with a Gold Star award.

James Burge and Niall McCann, both 26-year-old recruitment consultants took 63 days, two hours and five minutes to row from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Caribbean in a 24ft boat.

They raised thousands of pounds for Bristol Zoo's conservation project through their expedition, which was part of the Atlantic Rowing Race 2007.

A huge physical and psychological challenge, the crossing is an adventure that has been achieved by fewer people than have stood on the summit of Mount Everest.

James and Niall – nicknamed the Naked Rowers after they announced they would strip off while rowing to minimise chafing – rowed in shifts, one hour on and one hour off.