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Supermarket workers Geoff Norris and Julie Cook have been honored for their Covid-19 efforts
At the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, when supermarket shelves were suddenly left empty, delivery driver Geoff Norris decided he couldn’t let the elderly and vulnerable go without their groceries.
“Just before [lockdown] started, he noticed that all delivery spaces were being reserved, “he recalls.
Norris, 53, from Cambridgeshire, began using his own car, on the days he was not working, at Asda in Wisbech, to ensure elderly and vulnerable customers could still shop.
He gathered his fellow drivers to volunteer their own time to pick up the groceries, go through the boxes, and deliver them in their own vehicles on Sundays.
With the help of his wife Vanessa and 22-year-old daughter Anna, he took orders by email and phone, or customers contacted the store directly.
“I think we managed to do it for about 15 weeks,” Norris said.
“It was difficult, but it was very gratifying to see the gratitude you received from people who did not believe they could get anything.”
Norris is one of hundreds of “unsung heroes” who influenced the UK’s response to the pandemic, celebrated on the Queen’s birthday honor roll this year.
He said he was “absolutely stunned” to receive a British Empire Medal (BEM), one of 414 honors awarded for his contributions to Covid-19 out of a total of 1,495 recipients.
Another supermarket worker, 56-year-old Julie Cook, who works in a store in Aberdare, South Wales, also becomes a BEM after wasting her free time to make sure a nursing home can obtain vital supplies.
She would take her shopping list every week and organize everything so it was ready for the nursing home staff to come pick it up.
Ms. Cook, who has worked at the store for 21 years, said: “I had to read it and reread it to see that it was an official honor. I never imagined it would be such an honor.
“I was jumping up and down when I found out, I was very excited.”
The honors system
Commonly Awarded Ranks:
- Companion of Honor – Limited to 65 people. Recipients have the initials CH after their name
- Gentleman or lady
- CBE – Commander of the Order of the British Empire
- OBE – Officer of the Order of the British Empire
- MBE – Member of the Order of the British Empire
- GOOD – British Empire Medal
Honors Guide
Health and welfare workers make up 14% of the total on this year’s list and some went beyond their day jobs to answer a call of duty.
One of them is NHS nurse Ashleigh Linsdell, who was named OBE after what she calls “a really naive idea” turned into a national effort to make scrubs for frontline workers.
It started when supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) ran out in her A&E department and she used her own money to buy fabrics and make gowns for her colleagues.
The 30-year-old from Cambridge then created a Facebook page and created For The Love of Scrubs, which soon expanded beyond recognition.
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NHS Nurse Ashleigh Linsdell Named OBE for Inspiring Great Effort to Do PPE
Two months later, the movement had 148 subgroups across the country to help organize local activity.
More than 70,000 volunteers helped manufacture 1.2 million PPE items for frontline workers and another million face covers.
People were initially self-financing before a fundraising campaign raising more than £ 1 million to buy fabrics to make PPE.
The operation was carried out from his home, with material cut there and sent to volunteers to make scrub.
Ms Linsdell, who now works as a community nurse practitioner in East Anglia, said: “I had no idea it would snowball to where we are now, but we have helped hundreds of thousands of frontline workers to be safe in your practice.
“It’s phenomenal. We wouldn’t be where we are without our thousands of volunteers.”
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Jolene Miller volunteered as a paramedic to help during the outbreak.
When rail services began to slow down during the shutdown, train conductor Jolene Miller, who had previously worked as a paramedic, felt she couldn’t “sit here and do nothing when I have skills that I could use elsewhere.”
The 42-year-old from Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, received permission from Northern Rail to take temporary leave to volunteer for the NHS.
She worked for more than three months at Darlington Memorial Hospital, evaluating patients for treatment.
Ms. Miller said she was proud to receive a BEM, but was aware that friends were still working for the NHS, “day after day.”
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David Maguire turned his restaurant into a “mass food production center” for the NHS
Another person who wanted to offer his help to the NHS was the owner of the Glasgow restaurant, David Maguire, 62, who gave out free meals to health workers as well as vulnerable people.
On the first day of confinement, he was inspired by some of his clients: nurses at the Beatson Cancer Center at Gartnavel Hospital, whose dining room had been forced to close.
The restaurant began preparing more than 800 free meals a day for the next 11 weeks, during which time he lived in his garage because his wife was protecting.
“The restaurant changed a bit […] to a massive food production center, “he said.
He said he was “really pleased” to be named MBE, but emphasized that it was a team effort and without his head chef Steven Caputa and his employee Melody Whitley “it wouldn’t have lasted a week.”
Dabirul Islam Choudhury, 100, was named OBE for his fundraising efforts.
Millions of pounds were raised for charity during the crisis, and the fundraisers are among those celebrated by this year’s list.
Dabirul Islam Choudhury, from Bow, East London, has become OBE after raising over £ 420,000 for coronavirus relief.
He said he was inspired by another man in his 100s, Captain Sir Tom Moore, who captured the hearts of the nation by walking through his garden for charity and ended up raising nearly £ 33 million.
Choudhury, who will turn 101 in January, walked nearly a thousand laps in his garden while fasting during Ramadan.
He said he was “proud” to be recognized on the list, adding that he “thanked everyone from the bottom of my heart.”
His 57-year-old son Atique Choudhury said: “Where we are from in Bangladesh, we don’t get a lot of recognition for the work we do, so this is for all the people who contributed to the success of my dad and all the Covid victims – 19 “.
Jay Flynn, whose weekly online quizzes became a lockdown phenomenon, becomes an MBE
Former pub owner Jay Flynn, 38, of Darwen, Lancashire, was also honored for his fundraising efforts, after his virtual pub contests unexpectedly went viral.
After the shutdown shut down pubs and bars across the country, he hosted what was intended to be a small event for his friends and regular contestants.
He didn’t realize that he had made his Facebook event public, rather than private, and instead of the expected 30 or 40 players, it attracted the interest of thousands of people.
More than 180,000 people played along with the free quiz at its peak, from as far away as New Zealand and the US.
It raised over £ 750,000 for charity through donations, with an edition hosted by Stephen Fry in May, raising £ 140,000 for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
When Mr. Flynn found out that he had been converted to an MBE, he said that he “almost fell backward from his chair.”
“I am completely overwhelmed and honored. I never thought I would achieve anything in my life.
“I don’t think it will sink in until I go to the ceremony. I’m impressed.”
