Peterborough’s unsung heroes honoured

Recipients were honoured at the Town Hall last week where they received their awards from Mayor of Peterborough Cllr Chris Ash, Peterborough City Council chief executive Gillian Beasley and Cllr Peter Hiller, chair of the council’s Honours Committee. One of the lifetime achievement award winners was Karen Hepworth-Lavery, who recently retired as headteacher of Heritage Park Primary School in Park Farm after more than 20 years. Karen helped to plan the building of the school from the outset in 1997 and left with the school holding an ‘Outstanding’ rating from Ofsted. She has now gone from looking after children to caring for alpacas in Maxey with her new business. She said: “I was really honoured to receive the award. To have your work recognised in this way with such an accolade means so much. I thoroughly enjoyed my career in teaching and was fortunate enough to work with some wonderful teachers and equally wonderful children over the years.” Fiona Henry, Bernadette Gibbons and Kirsty Hadfield are the organisers of Needless Needles, a campaign to raise awareness of discarded drugs paraphernalia and drive policy change, which has seen a task force set up. Fiona said: “We’re so pleased to have received these awards. There is still a lot of work to do, but we are seeing great success with returns of used needles to pharmacies increasing through our work with the task force. We are really proud of our efforts so far and very much looking forward to seeing the impact we can have improving the safety of everyone in the city.” Ian Davies has played a key role in the development of Peterborough Soup Kitchen. He said: “I feel honoured to have been recognised - this is not just for myself but the 180 volunteers. You do it because you want to improve things for people who are very vulnerable.” Barbara Holdich has been heavily involved in village life in Glinton for more than 40 years. She started the initial mothers and toddlers group and was instrumental in forming the first Friendship Club. Her husband John, who is leader of the city council, said: “I am very proud of her and I am indebted to her sponsor for putting her forward. Barbara has worked tirelessly for Glinton over many years and continues to do so.” The other winners were: Belinda Speechley, Brenda Fearon, Diane Nicholas, Dick Talbot, Eric Winstone, John Bartlett, Jonathan Rippon, Lawrence Wright, Louis Deplancke, Michael Chambers, Mick Mead, Mohammed Saeed, Muhammad Nawaz, the Running Advisory Group – Perkins Great Eastern Run, Steven Pettican, Trevour Purllant, David Boddy, Evelyn Speechley and Katherine Hlalat.