Honouring the shining stars of Covid-19
PEOPLE ACROSS THE UK HAVE WORKED TOGETHER TO BATTLE THE VIRUS. WE MEET SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO PICKED UP VERY SPECIAL NEW YEAR HONOURS
Husband-and-wife team David and Christine Bagley were awarded MBEs for services to their community in Bolton, Greater Manchester. The couple founded Urban Outreach 30 years ago and last year they helped thousands of local people in need.
David is modest about his work and is keen to point out that it was the donations from the public that got 2020 off to a flying start.
“We have people donating food all the time, but in the Christmas of 2019 we had the largest amount we’d ever seen in all the years we’ve been doing this,” he says. “We had so much, we were storing supplies in a church building, offices and food bank! “When Covid-19 hit, we had enough food from people’s generous donations to survive for the first four weeks of the original lockdown. It was a remarkable thing and it gave us a whole sense that we could cope with whatever was ahead.”
Of course there were tough times as David, 55, Christine, 62, and their team of volunteers worked around the
What’s come out of all this is people pulling together. Even if you only have one thing. Together we have an abundance”
clock to deliver what was needed – including providing 55,500 lunches in the school holidays, 1,200 food hampers at Christmas and 2,200 meals for the homeless over the winter period.
“We’ve encountered some of the saddest parts, as well as the happiest bits during the pandemic,” says David. “We had volunteers who were really struggling, then we were sending food out and finding people had died. At one point we had 900 people delivering food, that was quite magnificent. “Furlough was the answer to our problems because we had so many people volunteering and their companies let them use their vans. It was remarkable. We put on barbecues, Caribbean meals and non-alcoholic cocktail bars for the drivers. “Once, we had a delivery of 125,000 first class airline meals and we didn’t have any room for them, so a pasty manufacturer cleared a whole freezer so we could support other areas of Manchester.”
David and Christine are just two of the diverse group of people who were awarded MBEs in the New Year Honours list. It’s a powerful way to say thank you to people on the frontline, who have supported the nation through the unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Anyone can nominate someone that they believe has made an exceptional contribution to UK society.
People are honoured for achievements such as making a significant difference to their community and improving life for others, long-term voluntary service and remarkable innovation and entrepreneurship. The Bagleys were both surprised to be awarded MBEs and are clearly humbled by the honours. “I just happened to be at home one afternoon and I was going through some emails and I went in and said to Chris: ‘I’ve just got this email about a MBE thing.’ I read it through and realised it wasn’t a hoax!” says David. “Later, she got an email too and we had 24 hours to accept it. I guess at some point we’ll
For more information on Honours
recipients, go to gov.uk/honours
collect them, but we haven’t been given any sort of date yet. But getting to call my mum and tell her was the best thing. I’m adopted, so my parents made it all possible. I said: ‘I’ve got a gift for you.’ This MBE is theirs, too. “If we take an MBE, it’s not ours. It belongs to thousands upon thousands of people who have volunteered, given and supported us – children who have ridden their bikes up and down the street and got their neighbours to donate. It belongs to them. We only created a space and people filled that space.
“The one thing to come out of all this is people pulling together. Even if you only have one thing to give, it’s added to somebody else’s one thing and together we have an abundance.”