The two rescuers receive their awards from the High Sheriff. Photo: NNPMRT

Two members of the Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team have been honoured for their selfless devotion to the team and the local community.

Andrew Miller and Ninette Edwards were among other volunteers who received awards from the High Sheriff of Northumberland, Joanna Riddell.

Mr Miller has more than 33 years’ service in mountain rescue and has held a number of officer positions including a period as team leader. He is currently one of the team’s duty controllers covering a duty period every few weeks where he, like others, is the first point of the contact for the statutory emergency services who call out the rescuers.

A team spokesperson said: “Andrew also leads our engagement with Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service on wildfires where he has been particularly active over the past two summers helping mountain rescue teams support NFRS when tackling wildfires.

“Throughout the pandemic, Andrew has been very active with the Northumbria Local Resilience Forum executive and tactical group, overseeing the area’s response to Covid-19. This has involved Andrew as a volunteer regularly attending two or three meetings a week. Throughout this period he’s also supported the statutory authorities to review the LRF structure and the preparation of a number of pre-plans.

“Andrew’s work has ensured the team’s standard operating guidelines for dealing with the pandemic and critically ensuring the safety of our members when responding to incidents are in line with those of other agencies.

“In addition, Andrew also took on the role of our single point of contact with Public Health England ensuring the team received good advice when dealing with potential Covid contacts and he co-ordinated the vaccination process for our team members. Andrew is also heavily involved in local community events in Rothbury and is part of a local bagpipe band.”

Ninette Edwards, who has been a team member for more than six years as an operational member, has single-handedly sought out new sources of income, prepared bids for funding and successfully secured more than £25,000 of funding to offset ‘lost’ income through donations and other fundraising events.

The team said the pandemic significantly affected its fundraising activities. Collecting tins have been behind closed doors and outdoor challenge events, which provide a significant proportion of the team’s annual income, were cancelled.

The spokesperson said: “With annual running costs of £45,000, the funding secured by Ninette was critical, particularly in a year which was our busiest on record for incidents as people headed outdoors as the lockdown eased.

“Ninette has continued this work and her efforts are enabling the team to take forward a number of new developments to safeguard our members when operational and improve the service to those lost, missing or injured.”

Over the past two years, Ms Edwards’s fundraising efforts have also enabled the team to buy:

• A third response vehicle, which is now co-located with the ambulance service at Rothbury
• Avalanche transceivers, probes and shovels to ensure team members are safe when operating in winter conditions
• Replacement helmets, which have a limited lifespan, for members to use when operating in and around steep ground and crags
• Rechargeable head torches and handheld search torches for all team members, negating the need for members to provide their own.

As well as her commitment with the rescue team, Ms Edwards is also the leader of a local Scout group in Whittingham and a Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards leader.

Team leader Iain Nixon said: “These awards are thoroughly well deserved. As a general rule, we try not to single out individuals within the team, but there is no doubt that both Andrew and Ninette have gone ‘above and beyond’ for the team and their local communities and we are immensely grateful.”