Richard and Angela Maxwell help us celebrate 25 years of winners

It all began with a wreath-making course Angela set up to help children who had lost loved ones. The course was inspired by a girl who had lost her Mum and wanted to lay a wreath on her grave. Then they met another girl who had lost her brother in a road accident, which resonated with the couple because their own daughter had had her own near miss on a motorcycle a few years earlier.

So the Maxwells set up a remarkable scheme, whereby they pay for anyone in their county under the age of 30 to complete an advanced driving course.

Angela said, “We hope to save the lives of hundreds of people we’ve never met.”

They have also given local kids a taste for space, sending a group of 50 to the Leicester Space Centre. And they’ve paid for classrooms at the local school to be converted into specialist woodwork and metalwork spaces.

But the Maxwell’s generosity doesn’t stop there – they have funded CCTV in their village to make people feel safer and have paid for the resurfacing of the car park at the local village hall. There’s also a summer lunch and a firework display for local children in November.

Richard said, “One of the nice things for us is to see the fruits of our endeavours as we walk around the village and see the work we’ve done and to think that a lot of people have benefitted from those things.

“It’s probably the nicest feeling in the world.”