Top award for Welshpool's fundraising hero

Welshpool fundraiser Andrew Paddison has been honoured by the Company of Wheelwrights for his amazing achievements on an adapted handbike.

Andrew, a Thalidomider who was born with two short arms and one leg, was guest of honour at the Installation Dinner of the new Master of the Company of Wheelwrights at Drapers Hall in the City of London on Thursday night.

He received the Master Wheelwright Award 2020 in recognition of the wheel being used to the benefit of others, by raising money for charitable causes.

He was the guest of  Sir Stephen Dalton and also present were Team Paddison members Nicola Graham,. Clare Liley and Helen Millier.

In the last three years Andrew and his team have raised over £43,000 for charitable causes. Andrew cycled 1,000 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats in 2019, completed a 500-mile trip around the Scottish Highlands in 2020 and this year hand cycled an incredible 1,000 miles through some of Scotland’s most challenging countryside across to the west coast, up to Skye and then back across to the east and through the Cairngorms.

In accepted the award Andrew said his Grandfather had been a wheelwright and his father had started life as an apprentice wheelwright. “So things really have gone full circle.”