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Action hero is the Pride of Maidstone

Do you remember the man who used to deliver stationery to your school?

In most cases the answer would be a befuddled 'no’, so it may come as a surprise to learn that Kent County Council stationery deliverer Wayne Savoury has become something of a celebrity to hundreds of children around Maidstone.

Then again, not many stationery deliverers have ever risked life and limb by leaping aboard a 40-tonne dumper truck to accost its out-of control drunk driver.

In June 2005 Mr Savoury was on hand to do just that when drunk builder Christopher Mills drove past his living room, in East Malling, in the midst of a whisky-fuelled rampage that demolished garages, toppled telegraph poles and crushed 15 cars.


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29-year-old Mills had drunk a litre of whisky in his lunch hour before causing almost £20,000 worth of damage with the 40-tonne truck. He was later jailed for 18 months.

Residents in East Malling and Larkfield remain eternally grateful for Mr Savoury’s selfless bravery, which surely prevented an out of control and destructive situation from become a more-serious disaster.

In December 2006 he was rewarded with £500 and a commendation by Maidstone and Malling Police Supt Mark Salisbury.

Now the Arsenal fan has got a Kent Messenger Pride of Maidstone Award to add to his collection, having been nominated by mother-in-law Carol Sheridan.

It’ll be welcome news to the school children of Maidstone, who see Mr Savoury as a kind of Bruce Willis movie character - albeit one armed with a box of felt-tipped pens instead of a handgun.

The award winner said: “Every time I go to a school I’m always their hero and its not just in my area. They all go 'oh, you’re the guy that stopped the truck’.

“I’m really surprised to get nominated for an award again though.”

The memory of those chaotic minutes will live with him forever, he said.

“I remember it all like it was last week.

I was on the side of the truck when it took the wall out in Elm Crescent. Then I got up in the cab and started hitting the guy. I punched him four of five times until I think I knocked him out and I managed to turn the engine off.

“At the time it wasn’t that traumatic - it wasn’t until I got back I realised I could have been killed.”

Mother-in-law Mrs Sheridan said: “What he did was a very brave thing - he acted on his own initiative but didn’t think of himself.

“It’s typical of Wayne; he doesn’t think of himself - if he had fallen under the wheels he would have been squashed, or if the chap had turned nasty anything could have happened.

“I think it affected him for a little while after - the thought of what could have happened, but I think it helps being praised by the police and interviewed on TV.

“His children think he’s wonderful - to go to school and say 'my dad did this’ is the bees knees.”

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