Ukraine conflict: Cloybank boss travels from Banknock to Poland with aid for refugees

John Penman, who runs Cloybank outdoor centre in Banknock, has been overwhelmed by the donations from across Falkirk district – much of it pouring in within hours of his appeal.

He leaves later today for Manchester where he will meet up with friends who also have a donation-filled van and from there they will catch a ferry to France before travelling across Europe to the Poland-Ukranian border.

With him on the journey will be David Wright, 23, an apprentice joiner working at Cloybank, who jumped at the chance to help out.

John said: “Like everyone I’ve been horrified by what is happening in Ukraine and the plight of the people.

"We can't just sit back and let this happen right in front of our eyes. Every wee bit we can do to help will make that little bit of difference.”

He said the call to get involved came from one of his friends, who he regularly meets at the Isle of Man TT races.

John added: “He phoned me and said he was going with another friend to do a humanitarian run to Poland. He knew that I would want to be part of it.

"I went to my wife Libby and told her what he was doing and she gave her blessing for me to go too, saying: ‘I knew that you would want to do something like this’.”

Within hours of putting the appeal on Cloybank’s Facebook page, people were arriving at their door to hand over donations of nappies, first aid kits, hats, scarves and gloves.

"We’ve just been blown away,” said John, admitting that the kindness shown had moved him to tears on more than one occasion. “The generosity of the Scottish people is outstanding and often it’s from people who don’t have a lot themselves.”

John and David, helped by John’s daughter Carolanne Cowan, a supervisor at Cloybank, packed all the goods into boxes and then had the task of fitting them all into the Cloybank minibus.

"I never thought that we would have this response and I can’t thank folk enough,” John added.

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