King Charles and Keir Starmer share special messages with Pride of Britain winners

The King and the Prime Minister led tributes to the nation’s unsung heroes as excitement builds ahead of the 25th anniversary Pride of Britain Awards.

Dozens of huge stars, from Oscar winners to chart-toppers and world champions, will celebrate the extraordinary achievements of winners, including awe-inspiring children of courage, fundraisers, campaigners and lifesavers.

The King called them “the very best” of us, and Sir Keir Starmer said, “They embody everything that is great about Britain”.

King Charles’ words were included in a letter to King’s Trust Young Achiever winner Molly Leonard, whose grandmother shed tears of pride as she read it to her.

In addition to praising Molly, he wrote: “On this 25th anniversary of the Pride of Britain Awards, I send my warmest admiration to all of this year’s winners. You each represent the very best in our society.”

And Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told winners “Britain is proud of you”. 

He said: “For a quarter of a century, the Pride of Britain awards have celebrated the people who embody everything that is great about Britain. These are people from all walks of life, but they all have one thing in common. They’re heroes.

“They may not be the cape-wearing superheroes we normally think of – in fact, they look just like the rest of us. But they do have something that makes them very special indeed. Bravery, determination, generosity, empathy and huge spirit.

“They have the power to touch our hearts, to make us hopeful, to make us proud. They’re a testament to the incredible things people can achieve even in the face of hardship.”

The Pride of Britain began collaborating with The King’s Trust in 2001. The charity targets people aged 11 to 30 and aids them with life skills and access to work and job opportunities.

London Eye illuminated in Red, White and Blue for Pride of Britain ( Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)

Previous beneficiaries have included Luther star Idris Elba, who, as a teenager, used a £1,500 grant from it to help start his career attending the U.K.’s prestigious National Music Youth Theatre.

King Charles first attended the Pride of Britain awards ceremony in 2012. He hailed the awards saying, “ Nobody does it better,” as he singled out the achievements of Team GB at the Olympics while presenting long-distance runner Mo Farah with the Special Recognition Award.

He said: “I’m proud of the British Spirit at home and around the world.

“You’d be amazed at the number of letters I have had from people abroad and heads of state congratulating people of this country for doing something so remarkable and with such style.

“I am also so proud of Team GB. So let us build on this legacy and remind ourselves for once how special this country is when individuals operate as part of a team and let’s just remember how good the British are at organising things.

“In the words of Carly Simon in the song for the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, which I can never get out of my head: ‘Nobody Does it Better’.”

The King also attended in 2016 to present a Young Achiever Award to Francesca Brown, who overcame depression to set up a football programme for girls, helping them deal with issues such as low self-esteem and body image.

Speaking of the awards, the then Prince commented that they “remind us of the compassion, decency and courage which still exists in every corner of the land.

“It is a wonderful way to celebrate those who make us proud to be British.”

This year, four young people are being celebrated for their incredible achievements as finalists in The King’s Trust Young Achiever category.

Over the years, Pride of Britain has also recognised those who have doggedly uncovered the truth about some of the biggest scandals of injustice in our nation’s history - the David’s fighting the Goliath establishment figures - in the very spirit of our newspaper’s values.

Alan Bates was the recipient of the Special Recognition Award ( Image: David Dyson/Daily Mirror)

Last year’s Pride of Britain winner, Sir Alan Bates, received a special recognition award after fighting a decades-long crusade against the Post Office on behalf of hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses wrongfully prosecuted and, in several cases, wrongly jailed.

Sir Alan’s Pride of Britain award recognition came three months before the ITV drama Mr Bates versus the Post Office aired in January and his much-deserved knighthood this summer.

Host Carol Vorderman says, “We are very proud of what the awards have done over the decades, shining the spotlight on people who have been so brave in holding the powerful to account. Alan and his now-wife Suzanne walked down our red carpet for the awards last year—with little known about them. It would be a different story this year.”

Championing these courageous unsung heroes has always been at the heart of the Awards.

A decade earlier, Margaret Aspinall was given the 2013 Special Recognition Award on behalf of all the families who lost loved ones during the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.

Margaret Aspinall being presented with the Special Recognition Award by Kenny Dalglish ( Image: Rowan Griffiths)

Margaret lost her 18-year-old son James at the football stadium, causing a fatal crowd rush which officials blamed on the fans.

Like Sir Alan, Margaret sought the truth for years, and she finally received it in 2012.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel concluded that no Liverpool fans were responsible in any way for the disaster - and that its main cause was a “lack of police control”.

At the time, Margaret said: “I know I’ll never get my son back, but I’ve finally got the truth. We all made sure that nothing like Hillsborough will ever happen again, and that’s a good legacy that we’re proud to leave behind.”

This year, Andy Evans, Jason Evans, and Michelle Tolley are our Special Recognition winners. They have campaigned tirelessly on behalf of relatives and victims of the infected blood scandal.

Michelle Tolley, 59, was infected with Hepatitis C at 22 after receiving two blood transfusions following the birth of her son. She wasn’t diagnosed until 2015. She says, “So many people have fought so hard for so many years. The enquiry results felt like we’d been heard by the system, this Pride of Britain award feels like we have been heard by the people, and that’s amazing.”

Other Pride of Britain champions include 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award winner Dr Chad Varah, who founded The Samaritans while working as a vicar in the East End of London in the fifties after conducting a funeral for a 14-year-old girl who had taken her own life.

In 2001 Amnesty International founder Peter Benenson was awarded for starting the human rights organisation, which now has more than a million members in more than 140 countries.

Holocaust hero dubbed the ‘British Schindler Sir Nicholas Winton was awarded the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award for saving Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Joe Mitty, Oxfam’s first full-time paid employee, was recognised for his work in establishing a network of charity shops around the UK.

Recent recipients include 2017 winners the Grenfell Community and the Grenfell firefighters.

Firefighter with Grenfell Community members at the ceremony ( Image:Tim Anderson)

In 2018, the British Cave Rescue Team, which rescued 12 Thai footballers from a flooded cave, won the Outstanding Bravery award.

In 2021, Professor Sarah Gilbert and her team in Oxford were awarded for their work in developing the COVID-19 vaccines, and in 2023, pioneering surgeon Dame Averil Mansfield blazed a trail for women in medicine, becoming the UK’s first female professor of surgery.

After qualifying as a doctor in 1960, Averil trained as a general surgeon and became a consultant in Liverpool in 1972, at a time when just 2% of surgeons were women.

She joined St Mary’s Hospital in London ten years later and, in 1993, was appointed Professor of Surgery – the first woman in Britain to attain the rank, before being awarded the Lifetime Achievement award in 2013.

Ahead of the 25th anniversary, landmarks and buildings across Britain, including the London Eye, Blackpool Tower, Cardiff’s Millennium Centre and the Kelpies in Falkirk, have been lit up in red, white and blue to honour our winners.

Since 1999, The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards, with TSB, have seen royalty, leaders, and some of the world’s biggest stars come together to honour the nation’s unsung heroes.

Carol Vorderman and Ashley Banjo are celebrating 25 years of Pride of Britain ( Image: Reach PLC / Ray Burmiston)

And tonight’s gala celebration, hosted by Carol Vorderman and Ashley Banjo at Grosvenor House in London is set to be the biggest yet.

Stars taking part include James Corden, Michael Sheen, Ray Winstone and Vanessa Williams, TV favourites including Emmet J Scanlan, Clare Balding, Joel Dommett, Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, Tom Allen, Moira Stuart, the entire Strictly line-up, stars from Corrie and Eastenders and huge names from the world of music including Anne-Marie, Clean Bandit and the Sugababes.

Sporting heroes in the room will include football’s Jill Scott, Demi Stokes, David Seaman, Jermain Defoe and Graeme Souness, and Olympic and Paralympic legends including Dame Kelly Holmes, Dame Sarah Storey, Sir Jason and Dame Laura Kenny, Hannah Cockroft and Max Whitlock.

James Smith