Jo was paralysed from the neck down, aged 12.  Throughout her teenage years she worked hard to regain some movement, and eventually managed to attend university, eventually completing a Phd in Modernist Poetry.

After challenging her mind Jo turned to challenge her body and took up sit-skiing.

At the end of the 2008 season Jo was near the top of the world rankings after only 2 years of competitive sitski racing.  Summer training was going well, and then Jo noticed her lower left leg swelling, DVT was diagnosed in her leg and by late October had swollen to five times its normal size but Jo insisted she would continue training.

On returning home Jo took the decision (after advice) to have a through the knee amputation.  Jo was back training 6 weeks after surgery to be ready for the March 2010 Winter Paralympics.

Keda was born in Saltaire in 1926.  Almost all of her teaching career was spent at Sandal Road Primary School in Baildon and this is where she began her work with struggling readers.

She began working with children in her own time to find a strategy to help them learn to read.   This painstaking process was the genesis of what later came to be known as Toe by Toe.  After more than a decade of this approach, Toe by Toe had become a fully functioning system to teach any child the decoding skills necessary for reading.

Toe by Toe was published in 1994 and is now used in more than 20,000 schools around the UK and in more than 50 different countries around the world, Keda’s ‘Little Red Book’ has now taught hundreds of thousands of dyslexic people to read.

After graduating Esther worked for the Dept of Social Services in charge of a local authority home in Headingley.  Esther’s compassion for every aspect of the children’s welfare bore tremendous fruit.

Esther was troubled because at the time there was no legal obligation to provide care and support beyond the age of sixteen.  In 1987, along with Peter Parkinson, she set up Caring for Life.