VACCINE HEROES HAILED ON A shot in A NIGHT OF LOVE AND TEARS the arm for us all
I would have walked across broken glass to give you this award
PRIDE of Britain is a song for unsung heroes. And since the moment Paul McCartney attended the first awards in 1999, its unofficial theme has always been All You Need Is Love. Twenty two years on, love remained the heartbeat of this year’s event.
Whether it was Gee Walker’s children saying ‘We love you, mum’, or Joanna Lumley telling organ donor campaigner Rosemary Cox she loved her, or Ed Sheeran’s love song to Harmonie-Rose Allen who lost her legs and arms to meningitis, love was all around.
It shone through the friendship between two young fundraisers Hughie Higginson and Freddie
Xavi. It was in the solidarity of Sands United, the football team for dads who have lost babies. And it was in the camaraderie of the Oxford team who kept each other going to discover a world-changing vaccine.
In the year that Pride of Britain lost its own founder Peter Willis, who died in June, the nation’s most emotional awards was even more poignant than usual.
At the last event in 2019, Covid did not yet have its name. In 2021, as Carol Vorderman thanked Oxford Vaccine team, it was the first time in 22 years anyone had seen the awards co-host reduced to tears.
A room full of famous faces, from ITV’s Simon Cowell to Hollywood’s Sharon Stone, and even Sausage from the Masked Singer, got to its feet for one of the longest standing ovations the Pride of Britain Awards, in partnership with TSB, has ever seen. After taking place last year as a virtual event, Pride of Britain was only possible in person this year because of the hard work of vaccine scientists and NHS vaccinators – many of us with the Oxford jab fighting our bodies’ daily battle against the virus.
Hearing how the team behind it had lived from the University’s vending machines, missing their own families, only added to the gratitude.
The team brushed off achievements which have led to 1.7 billion doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine being given worldwide. “It’s lucky that mini-Cheddars and Bounty bars are two of your five a day,” Prof Cath Green OBE laughed.
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard added: “We’re all pretty ordinary people, just doing our normal jobs in an unusual time”.
As Stephen Fry, presenting them with their award said: “It’s only true heroes who think they aren’t heroes.” He added: “I would have walked across broken glass to give you this award.”
Actress Sharon Stone, who recently faced the tragic loss of her baby nephew, spoke for many as she gave a Prince’s Trust Award to Syrian refugee Hassan Alkhawam. “It’s really lovely to see people again,” she said. “I’ve been crying all night.”
Fittingly, for a year when we remembered Peter’s passion in creating these awards, this was an incredible group of winners. There was something unmistakably Pride of Britain about Stephen Wharton, a
53-year-old painter and decorator from Cumbria. In his role as parttime firefighter, he had been called to the River Eden, where teenager Kacper Krauze had sunk to the bottom, his body shocked by the icy water.
Stephen is a ‘wading first responder’ but seeing Kacper’s distraught parents he took off his safety equipment so he could dive down to save his life. “We do get some ops discretion,” he said wryly, but “diving down 15 feet is pushing the bounds a bit.”
Seven-year-old Harmonie-Rose Allen, a quadruple amputee, was unfazed by the bright lights. Listening to her karaoke duet with Ed
Sheeran, Simon Cowell told Harmonie-Rose her singing was better than Ed’s, but “don’t tell him”.
Rebecca Carless and Jamie McCallum were surprised by the cameras, thinking they were Pride of Britain guests rather than winners. The parents were behind a Carpool Karaoke-style video, #WouldntChange AThing, celebrating 50 children with Down’s Syndrome – that went viral.
The extraordinary people kept on coming. Twelve-year-old Max Woosey, who has spent more than 500 nights sleeping in a tent gifted him by a dying neighbour – raising £640,000 for his local hospice.
Campaigning sisters Amy and Ella Meek, aged 18 and 16, who set
up a kids charity to help fight plastic pollution. Hughie and Freddie, best friends who have raised more than £200,000 since Hughie was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Rob Allen who founded Sands United after he noticed no men were in the support groups for families struggling with baby loss. Rosemary Cox, 82, who successfully campaigned to set up the first Organ Donor Register in the UK in memory of her son
Peter. Former Royal Marine and triple amputee Mark Ormrod
who has raised over £450,000 for veterans’ charity REORG.
And perhaps most extraordinary of all, Gee Walker, whose son Anthony was murdered in a racist attack in 2005. For the last 16 years she has worked tirelessly to promote racial harmony. “I will use my pain to make a difference,” she said. “You can’t kill goodness.”
On stage, EastEnder’s Danny Dyer, in his inimitable style, called soap-fan Gee, “Queen of all the Treacles”.
Pride of Britain is also a legacy – for Peter, our friend and colleague. As Lloyd Embley, Group Editor-inChief of the Mirror, told the audience: “This was his baby – and we are going to do everything we can to look after it for him.”
When Peter first came up with the idea for Pride of Britain, people thought he was mad. Which celeb would turn up to see a bloke who’d rescued someone or to recognise a scientific achievement? Then Paul McCartney turned up at the first ceremony, just months after losing his wife Linda, and the rest is history.
The sky was the limit for Peter, who would have certainly wanted Lennon too. More than two decades on, Pride of Britain continues to attract Britain’s A-list with its song for unsung heroes. And in 2021, it is a song our country has never needed more.