Honour the UK’s unsung heroes with a nomination for Royal

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.news.royalmailgroup.com/news ... royal_mail

03/01/2008


The public are invited to nominate Royal Mail postmen and women who are the unsung heroes in their community for a 1st Class People Award - and enter themselves in a holiday prize draw.

Royal Mail would like to hear your stories about ‘1st Class’ postmen and women who are charity fundraisers in their spare time, or have performed a public-spirited act or dealt with an emergency while doing their deliveries.

Mark Higson, Royal Mail’s Managing Director said: "Because our people make daily deliveries to all 27 million addresses in the UK, they are often first at the scene in house fires, road accidents, and robberies and they instinctively get involved."

Last year Royal Mail was contacted by thousands of customers who nominated their postman or woman as an ‘unsung hero’.

Over 4,500 people at Royal Mail are trained first aiders and amongst the nominations last year were twenty-eight examples of people being saved by postmen and women. Emergency services have said that nineteen of those people would not be alive today without someone from Royal Mail going to their aid.

Most rescues have been from house fires, and several from car crashes, but people have also been saved from drowning, suicide attempts and given first aid or resuscitated in the street.

Elderly people have lain injured in their own homes until found by their postman, including one pensioner who lay collapsed in his bath for two days and would have died of hypothermia if his postman hadn’t noticed he wasn’t around and gone to investigate.
"Postman of the Year 2007" was Grimsby postman Norman Walker whose actions helped save the man’s life, with no thought to his own safety.

Norman and his family were setting off on holiday when a car hit the central reservation, trapping the driver who suffered multiple injuries to his face, arms and legs.

The car was leaking fuel and smoking, but Norman smashed his way into the car to help and stayed there for one and a half hours, holding the man’s jaw together, administering oxygen and tilting his head to stop him choking on blood while the emergency teams worked around them, trying to cut the man free.

As the fire brigade cut away the roof Norman placed his body over the injured man to prevent breaking glass from the car windows falling into the wounds.

The driver, whose injuries included a fractured pelvis, broken elbow, lacerations to the face, missing teeth and a broken jaw and broken left leg, had his right leg amputated below the knee following the accident but despite all this is making a remarkable recovery.

Mark Higson said: "The bravery stories make Royal Mail sound like the fourth emergency service but postmen and women make it more than that. Our postmen and women are a group of very remarkable people who contribute so much, with acts of kindness, a huge amount of fundraising, and a commitment to volunteering which makes such a difference to the local communities where they live and work."

Royal Mail’s people have given in excess of £27.5 million to charity through payroll giving over the past 15 years, and are also enthusiastic fundraisers, donating thousands of hours of their spare time and millions of pounds to good causes and community projects.

Paul Evans from Lampeter in Wales was named Royal Mail’s "Fundraiser of the Year 2007". Eight years ago he rallied villagers to support his vision to turn a derelict primary school into a youth club and community centre, raising over £61,000 for the renovation work. The youth club is nearly complete and has 150 members. Paul spends five nights a week running the gym and is now fundraising to complete the community centre.

There were joint winners for Royal Mail’s National Community Award. Clive Loveday from Swindon has been educating youngsters and highlighting the dangers of excessive drinking following a family tragedy in 2005, when his only son died after binge drinking at a New Year’s Eve party.

Aware that children are binge drinking from a very young age without understanding the dangers Clive visits schools and colleges where his experiences have a hard-hitting effect. He has also given numerous television interviews and helped with a television documentary ‘Britain’s Youngest Boozers’ for ITV.
For 38 years as head coach of the Times Amateur Boxing Club. Dave Ryan from Islington has been working with inner city youngsters, giving them a sense of purpose, self discipline and achievement. He spends three nights a week on training and at the weekends takes youngsters to boxing matches. The club has 300 members and is central to the community, running football teams and even dance classes for older people.

Customer nominations should be sent to: 1st Class People Awards, Royal Mail, 1st Floor, 148 Old Street, London EC1V 9HQ, or emailed to nominations@royalmail.com giving as much information as possible about the postman or woman* plus your contact details, so your name can be entered into the customer prize draw to win £1000 in holiday vouchers.

Closing date for nominations is 25 January 2008.

*It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the postman or woman’s name - we will be able to identify him or her from the delivery round if you give us the delivery address and postcode.

ENDS

Issued by Royal Mail
148 Old Street
LONDON
EC1V 9HQ
www.royalmail.com

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Examples should relate to the previous 12 months.

Regional winners will be announced in February, and the overall national winners will be announced on 31 March 2008.

[axeman]

There are two that i'd not save !! wonder if any one can guess just who that might be would not care if it was a fire etc.....