Carlisle Living Awards: winners revealed

EDEN Valley Hospice were the big winners at the Carlisle Living Awards, a night celebrating all that's going on in the Border City.

The hospice on Durdar Road, Blackwell, Carlisle, scooped two awards - Best Place to Work and Best Retail Team.

Retail manager Anne Hall was quite lost for words when trying to describe what it was like to receive such great endorsements.

She said: "It's just quite - it's just amazing.

"The retail team work with volunteers and they take everybody else's cast offs and we have little resources so to actually win the [Best Retail Team] award is a credit to everybody because we're against some really good, competitive, high street retailers."

Eden Valley Hospice beat off competition from Dickinsons, Lush, Schuh, Stormfront and Topshop to win the award.

The hospice has seven shops in Carlisle, Brampton and Wigton and is due to open another in Penrith soon. Staff manage the shops and are supported by a team of more than 200 volunteers.

Last year the shops helped to raise more than £310,000, which is about 10 per cent of the hospice's income for the year.

Anne was also thrilled the hospice had won Best Place to Work as she said the staff worked so hard in an emotionally challenging job at the heart of people's lives.

The hospice cares for adults with life-limiting illnesses and its counterpart, Jigsaw Cumbria's Children's Hospice, provides day to day care, support and activities to children and young people living with a life-limiting illness.

She said: "To take that back and say to our team look at what we have done and what we've won, it's amazing."

The Carlisle Living Awards celebrated its third birthday this year, returning to the same venue, Garden at Eden, near Crosby-on-Eden.

The venue at the golf course has made a brilliant recovery since it was flooded in December and everyone ignored the grey, wet evening outside in the marquee sparkling with fairy lights.

Tables were filled with 430 people, who were ready to party and enjoy their Friday night. They enjoyed a delicious three course meal and were entertained throughout the evening by media mogul John Myers, hosting for a third year in a row.

The award giving did not start until about 9.30pm when the ceremony went live on Facebook.

More than 350 people tuned in to watch and the streaming reached about 20,000 people.

The awards celebrate all the best places to shop, be beautified, work, stay, visit, eat and drink around Carlisle.

There were also 13 awards for individuals and businesses who were leaders in their field or were inspiring for others.

In the food and drink section, Best Casual Dining was awarded to Foxborough on Cecil Street, which serves mouth-watering American-style smoked and barbecue meats.

Winning the award was no mean feat against last year's winner, Dutch Uncle, and considering the restaurant, owned by friends Scott Nicholson and Ben Parker, only opened in March.

There was also high praise for Ebony Harper, who won Employee of the Year.

She started as a pot washer in Shabby Scholar in Carlyles Court, Fisher Street, and has worked her way up to now be supervisor.

There was a lot of raucous applause and a few standing ovations during the night.

Everyone was up on their feet when Carlisle Youth Zone were announced as the winners of the Best Team.

Lynsey Buckle, development manager at the zone on Victoria Place, was absolutely delighted the team won, saying it had been a really hard year for the team after the centre was flooded.

Staff always said to the children that everybody was in it together and by working together they would pull through.

She said: "To get best team award is the best outcome we could get and we're so proud."

There were tears from Karen Robertson when she went on stage to collect the Best Health and Fitness Venue or Initiative Award.

She had been doing swimming lessons for 10 years and is passionate about teaching people how to swim,

She said: "I'm so excited, it's so special and unexpected.

"[Swimming] is a life skill and I just believe that every child should have the opportunity to learn to swim before they start school.

"They should be swimming comfortably and know that if they had got into a position that they needed to save themselves that they could."

Another winner who did not expect to receive any award was Jackie Brough, senior assistant head at Newman Catholic School.

After the floods in December the school relocated to temporary buildings at the former Pennine Way Primary School site in Harraby.

The last few months have been tough for the school but Jackie's attitude has always been to roll up the sleeves and get on with the job.

Jackie said: "I didn't expect to win - I'm the most undeserving recipient.

"What was nice was I was able to take everybody on stage with me and my colleagues and friends are here to celebrate."

Jackie has worked at Newman School for 21 years and loves the job.

She said: "It's an absolutely marvelous school full of marvelous and talented and wonderful children and amazing staff and I wouldn't have stayed 21 years if I didn't think it was the best place ever to work."

The Inspiration Award was given to another surprised winner, EasyJet captain, Kate McWilliams, who was also greeted on stage with a standing ovation.

John Myers told the crowd that Kate made her first flight at 13-years-old, was flying loop-the-loops at 15, made her first solo flight at 16, went to commercial pilot school at 18 and now, at 26 is an EasyJet captain.

Kate said she was passionate about inspiring others to follow their dreams.

"There's nothing to stop you, just do it. You can do whatever you want to do," she said.