Kingstown allotment owner and Covid volunteer Eric Clarke

Years as a senior logistics manager at the Longtown Munitions Deport probably gave him the sort of organisational skills needed during a pandemic.

Responding to calls in the media, he volunteered to help and spent approximately 1,600 hours as a volunteer responder - picking up prescriptions or groceries and whatever else was needed by vulnerable people stuck at home.

Once the vaccine rollout started, he covered around 120 shifts in Penrith and the Harraby Centre and is continuing to support these clinics when needed.

"I am on reception, registering people, making sure they have no Covid systems and then send them down for their jab," he says.

VOLUNTEER: Pandemic hero Eric Clarke

When he is not volunteering, Eric can be found at his beloved Kingstown Road allotments.

He is secretary of the self-managed Kingstown Allotment Association and has twice won awards for his allotment.

"I really enjoy the allotments. We all work together and help each other. If there is something to be done, we all join in."

And there have been things to do together - including recovering from the 2007 flood, where the allotments bore more resemblance to lake.

Eric grows all his own fruit and vegetables.

"It is always to much for us to manage, so most of it is given away," he said.

Born in Nottingham, Eric left school at 15, walked up to MOD depot there and asked for a job. He was taken on as a junior labourer and worked himself up the ladder, spending three years in Germany as before being transferred to Longtown as a senior logistics manger in 1986.

He retired exactly 50 years and one day after starting work with the MOD, and he and wife Karen have made Carlisle their permanent home and their son lives quite close in Penrith.

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